


the long bright dark

by captainkilly



Series: form & void [1]
Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, F/M, Fox Company are a bunch of yokels, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, OMCs are Dog Company men, Speirs was their LT first, gods walk the earth and exact their influence on people, it's a war what did you expect?, mostly/remarkably canon compliant all in all?, staying on the safe side rating-wise, that's the baseline for this fic in a nutshell, we don't talk about them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:48:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25790872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkilly/pseuds/captainkilly
Summary: War chose Ronald Speirs a long time ago. He has always claimed to be at peace with that. Now, as his life finally leads him into battle-torn Europe, he believes that he is entering his final months of service. With the thought of death a near-constant companion and the rush of combat running rampant in his veins, he may yet be forced to re-examine what it truly means to be bonded to a god..
Relationships: Charles Grant/Ronald Speirs, Ronald Speirs/Original Female Character(s)
Series: form & void [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918033
Comments: 187
Kudos: 58





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was supposed to be a one-shot, but slowly became so much more. It was born out of my second watch of Band of Brothers off the single notion "what if gods were real and walked the earth alongside these soldiers, and Speirs was chosen by War?". Creating this has been a labor of love toward Speirs most of all, as this originated as a character study of sorts, but has come to encompass so much more than just him. 
> 
> The fic will be mostly canon-compliant and will at times lift aspects of the dialogue verbatim from certain scenes. The quote at the start of this chapter, however, is not from a real book. As Dog Company's men are unknowns to us in the show, I had a little fun creating some original characters to slot into Ron's company. (We shall not mention Fox Company.)
> 
> I sincerely hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as I did creating it!

* * *

“ _.. specialists conclude that the interference of deity in combat is a phenomenon observed across the globe. The last great World War saw many a trickster and messenger tangle with its front lines, though it were the gods of death and strife that truly ruled the theaters of battle. War-chosen soldiers in those days were often put on suppressants to curb the worst of their excesses, but several eye-witness accounts state that these pills were not strong enough...”_

**- _The World’s Stage: Deities as Actors in War_ , by Ambrose Wilkes**

* * *

**France.**

He has always loved the sky. It’s one of the few things in life that doesn’t change on a whim, or has any kind of personal feelings attached to it. The sky is just the sky: blue and dark and all the colours painters wish they could convey in their stilted works of art. There is a certainty in that, even when the world shifts beneath his feet and his breath hitches in his chest.

Tonight, the sky is filled with fire. He thinks he’d hear the screams if the noises weren’t so damn loud. Every blast fills his belly with a fell swoop, tugs at him just below his navel, crashes upward into the space where his heart is threatening to thud out of his chest. His fingers curl around the handle of his knife in response. His breathing slows at the feeling of the tape beneath his fingertips. There is a warped sort of comfort in the loose end he has begun to unravel near the base of the blade, as though he can spin out of life’s tight loop and be left with nothing but sharp edges clenched between his fists.

Inhale.

He thinks it’s going to be some kind of cosmic joke if he’s shot out of the sky before he sets a single foot on the ground.

Exhale.

Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. Douve River. Utah. Omaha. Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. Carentan, Carentan, Carentan. One continuous beachhead. Utah. Omaha. Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.

Inhale.

He’d give almost anything for a cigarette right now.

Exhale.

Killing is not the objective. Killing is not the objective. Killing is not the objective.

Red light.

Step up. Gear up. Check. Double-check. Okay. Okay. Okay!

Green light.

Stay alive, stay alive, stay alive.

The wind is gentle under his arms as he steps out of the plane. _One thousand._ He never thinks of this as falling. _Two thousand._ There’s just the sky, and the ground, and nothing else matters in the here and now. _Three thousand._

White silk streams out behind him like a banner in the night. Like a target. Target. Target.

The ground is mercy.

He hunches in on himself right before he hits it. Isn’t surprised to find the stupid leg bag gone, ripped away somewhere between plane and sanity. His knife’s still here, which matters more. Matters most. He cuts the chute loose unceremoniously. Rolls away from it as soon as the silk and the webbing fall away from him.

_Don’t stay in your DZ._

He repeats it like a prayer. Clutches the knife in one hand and frees up his rifle with the other. He still prefers close quarters for combat, even now that he’s gods-know-where in a place he’s never been with the sky on fire overhead. The noise above him is deafening, but it’s quiet around him. A little too quiet, maybe.

He moves upright and his world shifts. Tilts.

His stomach rolls. Heaves.

“Fuck,” he spits out, before his stomach lurches again.

He’s puking up the little he ate before he has a chance to fight it. He spies strands of red among the sick, webbed out and broken to pieces in equal manner. He spews up even more at the sight.

“Fuck,” he breathes.

The other suppressants are with the medics. Brass was scared of them losing the pills accidentally-on-purpose during the jump. Putting all their faith in a couple of medics surviving the jump seemed like the smarter bet. He hadn’t had the energy to argue then. Regrets it now.

He’s on his feet and moving along with the sway in his head. Doesn’t recognize where he is, but staying means dying and he came here to do more than that. He always finds his way. He always finds his feet. That’s the one thing that doesn’t change, even when everything else does.

Ron Speirs keeps going.

* * *

He is the sole surviving officer left to take charge of D Company. For now, at least, although he’s pretty damn sure he saw the captain’s plane take a direct hit over the channel. He harbors no illusion that it will stay this way. There is always going to be a new man to follow orders from. They won’t leave him to command the whole company this soon, not when they’re still wary of his allegiance to a god they have never managed to identify.

He’s down to twenty men including himself. Keeps doing headcounts the way a mother duck will always check on her ducklings, as though more than half the company didn’t drown on the way. He’s glad to see Philips, Mann, and McNally among the survivors. Less glad to see some of the others, though he thinks he hides that well.

“Think we’ll see any of the others?”

“Hammond maybe. Too stubborn to die, that one.” Ron assesses it lightly as Philips leans up against the remnants of the wall beside him. “The other companies are missing some men, too. Chances are they just landed in the wrong DZ and have a piss-poor sense of direction.”

“If _ours_ have a piss-poor sense of direction,” interrupts McNally’s distinct Irish burr, “how come _Fox_ Company suddenly forms the majority presence?”

“Cannon fodder.” Mann’s smile is unapologetic. It showcases a broken tooth, scrunches up his steadily-forming black eye, and generally makes him look like a rather menacing pirate. “At least Easy’s forming nicely, too. Kinda sets off that whole ‘we are all going to die’-feeling a bit.”

“Easy survived Sobel.” Philips says it a little too knowingly. “They won’t get shot down by a bunch of Krauts on the very first day.”

“You got any smokes, Mann?”

He was dismayed to find that he’d lost his only pack in the drop. Even more dismayed to find none of the company had managed to hang on any tighter to theirs, unless one counted Jenkins’s mild obsession with bad smokes that he really does not care to foster.

“Just some shitty Raleigh I bummed off Jenkins,” replies Mann. Ron snarls half-heartedly at that. “You might wanna check some officers from Easy. They might have hoarded the damn stuff because I was all out long before we got to fucking France.”

“Where?”

“Winters just popped up.” Philips shrugs. “Compton’s here, too. Down in the general area.”

“Do me a favour,” he grunts, pushing himself clear from the wall, “and try to get some rest. If Hammond shows up, I wanna see him.”

“Sure, boss.”

He shakes his head as he walks off. The mortar squad might have adopted him as being in charge a little too freely by far. He supposes that is only right for men who like blowing things up, even when he’s convinced that Philips could double as an intelligence officer if given enough incentive to.

In that light, it’s strange to see Winters without his eternal shadow. Seeing the red-haired man without Nixon is one of the more disorienting things about this entire war so far, if he is being honest, although Winters is not exactly crumbling under the absence. If anything, his eyes are bright and his greeting is as warm as ever.

“Hey, lieutenant Speirs. How many men have Dog Company got assembled?”

“Handful.” He allows himself a doubtful expression, as if he has not counted and recounted his men half a dozen times between the jump and now. Keeps his eyes fixed on their surroundings. Tries not to sway on his feet. “Maybe twenty.”

“You the only officer that made it?”

“So far. Still waiting for orders.” He thinks any new captain of theirs is going to have a bitch of a time getting mortar squad to calm down again. Ron doesn’t say that part to Winters, who sounds like he has aged five years in the span of a few minutes. Instead, he tries for something else. “You got some cigarettes?”

He decides he likes Compton after all when the man actually produces a pack and shares it. Decides to not hear the man calling out for the pack when he walks off, pack still in hand, to go check out a rather precarious situation Philips had been griping about.

He lights the first of many cigarettes and pretends he can’t feel the brewing storm in his veins.

* * *

At least they’re smart enough to keep the prisoners on the outskirts of the camp.

He huffs distaste around the second cigarette he lights. They were instructed not to take any prisoners unless high-value and of interest to intelligence. He supposes it’s too much to ask for some soldiers to know who’s of interest in enemy ranks, even when they have been briefed about points of recognition time and time again.

The hairs on his arms rise as he observes the prisoners. He shakes his head. It’s the first day they are in active combat and they’re already fucking this up.

“Who ordered their capture?”

“Some brass from our company, sir.” At least Daniels has the grace to look ashamed. Fox Company’s sergeant actually looks none too happy to be guarding the prisoners at all. “He said there might be somethin’ useful in ’em.”

“Do you believe that?”

“No, sir.” Relief crosses Daniels’s face. He’s always liked the man, even when his company’s full of idiots and lost causes. Reminds himself to push for a transfer once they’re on good soil again. “There ain’t a man in charge among these. Not even the fella in the nice coat, really, because Lexington over there speaks enough German to understand that they’re posing to shield the real deal from harm.”

“Run along. Take Lexington with you.” He is careful not to phrase it as an outright order. “If they ask, tell your brass we were instructed not to take any low-value prisoners.”

Daniels has the audacity to smile at him. “Yes, sir.”

He’s left with two guards from Able he knows will keep their mouths shut. One is god-chosen and a loose cannon on the best of days, while the other has a vicious streak that even McNally didn’t successfully beat out of him during training. They’re not the kind of men he normally wants at his back. They seem to know it, too, by the way they glance at one another and then at him before shifting uneasily on their feet.

He holds the pack of smokes out to the prisoners. It’s the least he can offer, assured as he is that he will have more cigarettes once Hammond and the rest of his company arrive. A flickering flame is shared between them. These men are nothing like him. They are everything like him. Briefly, he wonders if he would be among them if he had been born in another place.

“Did you surrender?” he demands, then.

“Yes. Yes.” One of them is quick to reassure him. The man sounds American, which merely makes him hiss through his teeth. He’s heard about men like him, going back to their family’s country to answer some call to arms that is both stupid and dangerous. “We surrendered to you.”

He raises an eyebrow. Keeps his voice flat on purpose. “Did you now.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I do not accept your surrender.”

His pulse spikes. There’s a chattering sensation lodged in his teeth that hasn’t been there in years. Normandy grows bright around him. The greys of the man’s uniform have blue hidden in the coarse weave. The dirt around them is black and brown and green all over, shifting between hues more easily than a sunset ever did. The trees are all green mired with blue sky and occasional brushes of yellow.

The world comes alive for the first time since his eighteenth birthday. He wants to weep.

“What?”

The man, bless him, looks confused. Addresses the rest of the men in German for a second. They start to look confused too. He almost snarls. He does not want confused. He does not want them to think this is routine, that this is just one crazy American leading them astray before the rest of the pack descends and things go back to normal. He wants them to be afraid.

“You heard me.” His hands are on his gun. The coolness of it is a familiarity to his warm hands. The eyes of the Germans stray to it, too, but they do not look comforted at all. “You are of no value to us.”

“We have information!”

“Nothing I haven’t heard in my debrief.” A certainty settles over him as he says it. The assurance is stronger than he’s felt in years. Ron smiles. “I suggest you make your peace with that.”

He is calm as he takes aim.

Even calmer when he pulls the trigger.

The crow in the tree caws with every shot that rings out. Caws louder than the thump of bodies hitting the dying earth. Caws in a familiar tongue, with its sharp edges reminiscent of cold winter nights at home, with the more lyrical notes wrapping around him in the strangest of lullabies.

War sings him home at last.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events within this chapter intersect with BoB canon to a degree, including a small piece of dialogue. The closing scene is something that almost definitely happened in some form and was later added to the steady rumor mill that surrounds Ron Speirs. I'm also very, very excited for you to meet one new character..

* * *

The whispers follow him now.

Oh, sure, the other companies are careful to never let their actual words reach him. They’re even more careful to never meet his eyes or be in close proximity to him. There is a lot of telltale stuff in what doesn’t happen around him that used to happen all the time. No hands clapping his back. No slightly off-color jokes that make him roll his eyes. Nobody asking for smokes, either, and that might just be the biggest blessing in the middle of a war zone.

He has not had so much as a reprimand for shooting the prisoners.

The right call, then, even when it seems most of these men he is surrounded by don’t understand that particular part of it. He knows how to follow orders. Knows even better how to follow the orders that are not spoken out loud. It’s one of the things that saw him get promoted once, twice, all the times right up to that lieutenant marker on his collar.

He tells himself the dull roar that’s been in his mind since the jump has got nothing to do with it at all.

“Boss,” a voice interrupts, because he’s still the lone commanding officer of D Company and the brass has proven reluctant to change that, “word of mouth from Hester is that Easy’s low on ammo.”

“Again?”

“Different this time. Not that Compton fella.” McNally clips the words out faster than usual, which makes him sit up and abandon his cup of what is supposed to pass for coffee. “They’re up at Brecourt. Taking out some guns.”

“Stay.” He rises to his feet. “Jenkins, O’Neill, Rafferty, Jameson, on me.”

“Sir, jesus,” starts McNally. Cuts off when he sees Ron’s impatient wave. “Okay.”

It’s not that he doesn’t want McNally on this supply run. He wants the man more than he does Jenkins, that’s for damn sure, but McNally’s mortar squad through and through and he doesn’t need anything resembling a mortar for this one. What he needs is front line men, good at taking fast shots and even better at going on mindless suicide runs.

“Load up all the ammo you can get your grubby hands on,” he instructs. Tries not to wince as Rafferty yawns, O’Neill looks like someone sucker-punched him, and Jenkins.. is just being Jenkins. Yeah. Front line men. At least Jameson is halfway competent. He scrapes his throat. “We’re gonna go over there and give Easy a bit of a hand.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m bored,” he grins.

It’s not that he keeps perfect tallies of what will add to the whispers and what will not. He knows this will likely make it onto a growing list of reasons why D Company’s lieutenant is plain fucking crazy. It’s just that he really is bored, sitting here all keyed up on post-jump feelings with nowhere to go, and even going on an ammo run sounds more interesting than waiting for orders to finally trickle down to his location.

He loads his body up with all the ammunition he can safely carry and goes on a merry chase.

* * *

They arrive to chaos.

Easy has always been the company most prone to shouting at each other to move things along. He’s almost relieved to find that combat has not altered their propensity for it any. Happily partakes in it himself while offering up ammo, even, because Easy’s infectious nature isn’t so easily shoved aside and he is running on a high he doesn’t dare identify. He feels one of Easy’s men alleviate his back from the ammo’s weight even as he opens fire on the Germans.

There’s something calm about it. As easy as remembering where to place one’s feet while dancing. He halts his fire for a second. Turns to Winters and asks permission in a steady, though loud voice.

“Mind if Dog Company takes a shot at the next gun?”

He’s already taking in the trenches, the enemy positions, the friendly positions. Knows who’s conserving ammo and who isn’t. Estimates the distance from here to the next gun. Is already halfway to his feet in the split second of time it takes Winters to decide.

“All yours.”

“Let’s go, Dog Company!” he roars over the din.

Jameson, bless him, roars even more encouragement. “Up and at ’em, D Company!”

He is in the trench at first. Hates it the second he sets foot inside it.

They’re too fucking slow like this. The trench isn’t deep enough for full cover and the Germans have cottoned on to their movements by now. Moving along at the expected pace gives their better marksmen time to set up.

He does not want them to set up.

He cannot wait them out and forego the little element of surprise he has on his side.

He is quick to leap out of the trench. Wildly gestures for his men to stay level with the ground. Isn’t surprised to find that Jenkins doesn’t take directions in combat any better than he did in training. He hears the shot. Hears the body fall.

He can’t turn back. Can’t look back.

Look back and you’re dead.

Look back and you’re dead.

Keep going. Keep moving. Move and you live.

The decision’s easy.

His boots thud on the ground. _Left, right, left._ He almost smiles at the muscle memory that takes over the pace. The noise in his mind adjusts. Falls in line.

Through the trees. Down in the hole.

Adjust. Fight.

Taking the next gun is easy.

He won’t describe it as such to his superiors. Won’t use such words when he’s lost at least one man to this small objective. Yet, as he raises a hand to wave at Winters, _easy_ is just about the only word that comes to mind.

* * *

He lost his helmet at Brecourt.

Isn’t sure how the fuck that happened, but he made it all the way back to the meeting point without it perched on his head. Better the helmet than his head, he supposes, even when a supply officer outright told him “priorities” and left him stranded without a helmet for the foreseeable future. (It’s not that he resents supply officers, not really, but if he gets one chance he’s going to lift himself a nice brand new helmet out of the supply kits.)

It’s strange to be alone in the middle of a war zone.

His men are scattered across the grounds. Most of them are holed up together, but some have mingled with Fox Company’s better men for a game or two. He lets it happen. The only one who’s giving him any minor cause for concern is Rafferty, whose response to the assault on Brecourt can be summed up by drinking and more drinking.

He rubs his eyes tiredly. Flexes his trembling fingers. Rafferty is a problem for tomorrow. The lack of command is a problem for tomorrow. The fact that he spewed up his suppressant upon the landing is a problem he won’t admit to having.

It’s been so long since he felt truly alive.

He releases a shuddering breath. Clenches his trembling hand into a fist and blinks against the dark. Orders for light discipline are still active, though there are several fires in the distance that may be theirs as well. Shadows shift around him. None of them are shaped as people. They’re nothing familiar, either, though, and it means he can’t close his eyes.

He’s so goddamn tired.

He can’t stop shivering.

A soft hand closes around his fist. He grunts his surprise at the night air before it constricts and punches his lungs clear of the shards that settled deep inside them. His cheeks flush with a drowsy sort of heat that feels entirely out of place in Normandy. He blinks against the haze that looms at the edges of his vision. Tries to forget there is an ocean between here and home.

She is here and perhaps that is all the home he will need.

“I’m doing okay,” he offers to the dark that now stretches itself out around him. He welcomes the blanket of warmth that spreads all over his body. His shivers abate. “Arms and legs are still here. Head is too, for the most part.”

“Well, lucky me,” she says, and he feels her grin long before he sees the flash of sharp teeth out of the corner of his eye. He half-smiles around the seventh of what he knows will be many cigarettes as her tone takes on a carefully teasing lilt he knows all too well. “Don’t know what I would’ve done if you’d up and lost the latter on your first day.”

The way she says _first day_ almost sounds like _birthday_. He supposes that’s as true a statement as anything. The last time he saw her just like this was at a birthday too, years ago now. There’s some sentiment in there about coming full circle, but he prefers to ignore that in favor of more important questions.

“So, losing an arm is fine?”

“I wouldn’t say fine,” she laughs, and his world shifts out of focus a moment as her laughter rises and falls like the wind’s cadence, “but I could work with that.” She clips the next words out faster than he can fire bullets at an enemy. Even through the muddled notes of her voice, he hears the desperation. “Don’t you fucking _dare_ lose an arm, Ronald Charles Speirs.”

He raises an eyebrow. Tilts his head toward her slightly. The air ripples around her as she huffs out a breath that sends small bursts of light into the dark. She’s radiant tonight, of all nights, gleaming red and gold like the distant fires between the patches of darkness her presence cannot yet fill. Her skin shines dark and slick with blood as his fingers attempt to interlace with hers. He touches mostly air, flighty and shaky as her presence is beside him, but the sentiment stands.

She’s beautiful and he can’t look at her.

“You should get some sleep,” she hums. She sounds like she’s drowning, as though her head’s kept under water intermittently between one word and the next. “I’ll keep watch if you like.”

“ _That_ will go over real well with the rest of battalion.” He imagines it just a second. Shakes his head. “You can’t be here when they are. The brass won’t be pleased with a lieutenant who puked up his suppressants and then didn’t ask for new ones before slipping into direct combat. Won’t be pleased to find a god watching over a sleeping soldier, either.” He feels her pulse beneath his skin. Hopes nobody will think to check his vital signs in the next couple of hours. “Thank you, though. I will join the men and get some sleep.”

“Sure.” Her new hum thrills through his body and settles in his bloodstream with all the reassurance of a fearless thing. “Here when you need me.”

* * *

He thinks he needs her the very next day. Bites down on the urge to scream out for her the way he used to when he was seven years old and kept waking from a recurring nightmare twenty nights in a row. Clenches his hand around his gun a little tighter instead and hopes it’ll bring clarity.

“Rafferty. Orders are orders.”

He drops his voice low and makes it sound honeyed on purpose. Allows something other than the Boston-raised accent to make its way into it. Weaves and darts sing-song around his words in the hopes that Rafferty isn’t as piss-drunk as he fears the man might be.

“The Krauts are righ’ fookin’ there, sir.”

He closes his eyes briefly. “Yes, sergeant, they are.”

“Why ain’t we –”

“Sergeant Rafferty,” he hiss-barks over the rustle of the wind tearing through the hedgerows, “we are not attacking the Germans because we have been ordered by regimental HQ to stay put.”

He knew this was a wrong goddamn time for D Company to finally gain a new commander. He likes Gross just fine, even shared a cigarette with the man back in Aldbourne back when Gross was still a part of Able’s command. It’s just that Rafferty’s been on the wrong side of the fence since landing and Gross’s arrival threw a nice wrench into the semi-iron control he’s been trying to keep Rafferty under.

Mann, next to him, is studiously ignoring the unfolding argument and keeping his eyes level on the movements of the German troops. It means it’s safe to tear his own eyes away from the enemy that’s far away and focus on one a little closer to home.

“Hold your fucking position,” he snarls, then, because Rafferty’s making a move like he wants to rise to his feet and do something monumentally stupid. “Hold it. Hold the goddamn line.”

He takes in the pale faces of the men around him. Blood pounds in his ears. The wind roars to life inside him. Claws its way through the surface at last. He breathes with it as though he is part of this, as though his lungs are the things that control the brewing storm inside him. He cannot let anything happen to his company. He cannot lose any of these men, least of all to another man’s folly.

“They’re right there,” Rafferty slurs, again. “We could take ’em real easy. You’re just a bunch o’ cowards.”

“Rafferty,” he says, voice tired and thunderous all at once, “remove yourself from the line. You’re clearly too drunk for this.”

He counts on a lot of things to happen next. Somehow, the possibility of Rafferty actually pulling his gun out and aiming it in his direction didn’t make it into the top ten of most likely options. The men beside the drunk soldier are frozen like deer in headlights, eyes never straying far from the weapon and refusing to look at him outright.

He bares his teeth. “Put the gun down, soldier.”

“No, sir.”

“Put it down!”

“No!”

“LT, those Nazi fucks are going to hear the racket,” warns Mann, lips drawn taut and worried eyes still on their objective. “You’re gonna wanna do something.”

He doesn’t want to do anything at all. He doesn’t want to be here and make this decision.

He draws his own gun, but doesn’t take aim. “Put the gun down. That is an order, Rafferty.” His voice is level, but his eyes follow the man’s every movement. “Go join Captain Gross south of this position.”

Rafferty’s refusal is too loud. Rafferty’s gun is aimed at him outright now. Rafferty’s putting the whole platoon at risk.

One man is never more important than the many.

He takes aim.

Fires the shot.

Rafferty is dead before his body hits the ground.

“Philips, you and I will go inform Captain Gross of what happened here,” he says while lowering his gun and surrendering it into McNally’s waiting hand. His eyes fix on the remainder of his men. “Platoon orders will be given by Sergeant Jameson until further notice.”

“The Krauts didn’t notice a damn thing, so we’re all good.” Mann sounds steady behind his back. Matter-of-fact. “Don’t know how in the hell they didn’t hear that shot, but I’m not complaining. We’re gonna be outta here in a few days if they keep acting stupid.”

“What’re we gonna do about the body?”

“McNally.” Ron pinches the bridge of his nose. Counts to ten. “Decorum. Try it.”

“Yes, sir.”

D Company’s platoon is quiet as Philips moves up to him and grasps his arm. He looks at their faces, pale and questioning in the dim light, and nods at each one.

Not a single soldier looks away.


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the last of the Normandy chapters! Lots of interactions with Easy in this one as we head into Carentan and beyond.. as well as, ahem, some canon dialogue that features some of Ron's most iconic lines. It was one of my favorite chapters to write and I hope that this love translates to you as readers!

* * *

Captain Gross is killed in a skirmish the next day.

For once, it’s a death he has had no hand in. It’s merely another in a long line of bodies they will never take home. He sometimes wonders if the army takes requests, or if they just bury you wherever you die. He doesn’t want the ocean to claim him. Doesn’t want the forest to take him, either. He supposes he should’ve asked this before dropping onto foreign soil to fight until death swallows him whole.

“Oh good lord. I get lost for a few days and I come back to find my favorite lieutenant possibly contemplating his own mortality. Spare me.”

“You’re welcome to leave at any time, Hammond.”

Charlie Hammond hisses through his teeth at the casual dismissal. Lights a cigarette and joins Ron on the ground instead. He’s young, Hammond, enlisted fresh out of high school and fearless in the way only people his age can be. Smart as a whip, too, which really doesn’t explain why he spent all this time roaming the French countryside by himself.

“I mean it, sir, you’re my favorite.”

“I’m your _only_ lieutenant, Hammond.”

“Favorite.”

Ron huffs, secretly pleased. He studies the map on his lap a little halfheartedly, already having gone over it close to a thousand times back in England. Groans as he realizes Carentan is next on the list of barely pronounceable towns to take control of. He likes its potential tactical position more than he does its immediate surroundings.

“So.” Hammond’s fingers tap the corner of the map. Ron frowns. “It’s just you, then, sir? Leading us?”

He shrugs. “I suppose so, unless they pull me for what happened with Rafferty.” He doesn’t think they will. He doesn’t think anyone _cares_ at this point. He thinks the United States Army may have lost its goddamn mind somewhere in the English Channel. “If you see Captain Nixon anywhere, please inform him that I will eviscerate him if he attempts to wrangle you into intelligence before we leave France.”

“Does that make me your favorite, sir?”

“I could just pass you on to Welsh with my best regards right now, Hammond.”

“Evisceration. Got it.”

“Dog’s in reserve for this,” he says while moving the map further onto Hammond’s lap. “Easy’s taking point. We don’t talk about Fox, except to say they won’t be our issue to deal with.” They’d gotten lost a grand total of five times last night. He hasn’t forgiven them for it. “Carentan has several main access roads. Easy’s approach is through the center. We do not move until they are already in town.”

“Contain and control on the outskirts? Or do we actually go in?”

“Containment has priority, but with this many access points and being spread thin..”

“Better to drive them to where we want them to go. High ground?”

He knew there was a reason why he kept challenging Hammond throughout training back in the States. Also knew this was the same reason that led Lewis Nixon to stake out some wild future claim on the boy as an intelligence officer. Hammond can read a room full of people and tell you exactly who will be of use. He can devise tactics off the cuff and never once backs down from pushing for the best results. Ron has Hammond only for the duration of Normandy and no longer than that, or so he has agreed with Nixon. He plans to make full use of the gift.

“West area has trees, hedgerows, and the cover of land.” He indicates the positions on the map. “We’ll come in from the east and drive the Krauts we don’t kill to that western ground. There is open field between the town and that space.” He grimaces. “If it rains, it’ll be more like a marshland.”

“Yeah. One problem with that.”

“I foresee multiple.”

“No, not the marshland or the rain or the open field.” Hammond’s grin is almost feral. “The lone problem is that you just said we wouldn’t kill all of them.”

“We’re not the ones taking point on this.”

“Tell _Easy_ to kill all of them, then.”

He shakes his head. Drops the map onto Hammond’s lap altogether before rising to his feet. “Run this by Jameson and McNally. Memorize it. I’ll go inform our medics.”

“Way to change the subject, sir.”

“Hammond,” he says, tired of staring at the map and even more tired of figuring out how all the puzzle pieces fit together, “find me a way to kill every single one of them and I will let Nixon adopt you early after all.”

* * *

Carentan turns out messy.

Too many Germans have escaped in the chaos.

Ron feels a fierce headache bloom behind his eyes as he observes the town square. He knew they should have spent more time with Easy and Fox in training. It’s a miracle nobody got shot by friendly fire. An even bigger miracle that Dog, for once since landing, has suffered no casualties. Jameson needs to be pulled off the line with broken ribs. Two others suffered ricochets. He counts his men and counts himself lucky.

“Berlin by Christmas.”

And then, of course, there is the wild and rather blind optimism belonging to men that he thankfully does not count as his.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” he comments in passing. “We’ll be moving out soon.”

“Out of town, lieutenant? Already?”

He confirms it briefly, but doesn’t linger in their company. Easy’s men are too relaxed at this point. They think it’s fine to let their vigilance slide simply because one battle was won. He resolves to mention it to one of their officers, though he doubts anything will come of it.

Not everyone is suited for combat, after all.

“He’s god-chosen, that one.”

He isn’t surprised to find the rumor mill has reached Easy. At least the one they elect to tell in his presence isn’t a lie.

“What, like us?”

“Nah, not like that. His is different. Brutal. Violent. Probably one of ’em really old gods, you know? All blood and vengeance. What do you think, Blithe?”

Ron almost rolls his eyes at Easy’s mortar squad gossiping about him in Carentan’s town square. He hears the telltale chatter of tricksters comparing notes through the way they speak with each other, all jumbled chaos and pinpricks of truths, and vows to steer clear of the two that finish one another’s sentences.

It does nothing to dissipate the jittery notion in his own chest.

Carentan is theirs and it feels entirely too easy. He doesn’t like the position of the town any more than he does the outstretched land around it. It’s an easy access road, of course, and by all accounts of strategic value. It has high enough buildings to be of interest to company snipers. It was defended by a handful of Germans, which is where the real trouble is.

“Harry!” he calls, spotting one of Easy’s platoon leaders giving directions to a bemused-looking Fox Company soldier. “A minute?”

“Speirs, you got me to dodge a bullet there.” Harry Welsh is all smiles as he gestures at Fox’s soldiers. The frown that appears on his face half a second later could almost be called comical. “Were they really at Toccoa with the rest of us? I could swear that they have never seen a map a day in their lives.”

“It’s almost like your Captain Sobel lives on in them somehow,” muses Ron.

“Sobel didn’t die, though, did he?”

“Let him parachute into Normandy and wait for the inevitable.” Ron shrugs as Welsh shakes his head and lets out a chuckle. “Not why I called you over, though. How sure are we that this place is secure?”

“Uhhh, not at all?”

“Those fields will be the biggest problem, then. No cover. If they are faster at regrouping, or better prepared than us, we’ll be in for a world of hurt.”

“We’re moving out of town before nightfall. Prepare to spend the night digging in. You’ll be flanking us furthest out.”

“Dog’s moving out first?” he asks to Welsh’s confirming nod. “Good. The higher ground should be enough to take shelter in during the night. Attack at first light, we’ll be good to go.”

“Provided we get there.”

He shakes his head. Lights a cigarette. “Adventure, Welsh,” he admonishes. Frowns as he spots Hammond and Albrighton at each other’s throats a couple of yards away. “Live today, die well tomorrow.”

“That is not comforting in the slightest!”

The angry roar Welsh directs at his back almost makes him chuckle.

* * *

He can’t sleep.

It’s a miracle they were able to move through the fields more or less unscathed. They’d only gotten shot at in the last few yards before safety. Most of the shots went wide. He almost feels bad for being relieved that none of his men were among the few wounded or dead. He keeps tallies of his men every hour of every day since landing. He’s gained Hammond and a few others. Lost Jameson and two others to injury. He keeps counting and re-counting, hoping that lost does not mean gone.

He has checked up on his men twice already. Would have done it a third time, except for the fact that Welsh had come over and told him to “quit motherhenning the kids, Sparky” in a tone that didn’t really brook any argument.

He resents the nickname, given to him for the fact that the small light at the end of his cigarette was the brightest spark in the dead of night during sentry duty. He thinks it’s this resentment that propels him to rather aggressively motherhen the kids from Easy next.

“You, lanky one, keep pressure on that. You, kid, stop freaking out and start helping. You stabbed him, you have fine aim, it’s all good.” Ron flashes his teeth in a quick grin, which probably doesn’t make anyone feel better. “You, go grab us a medic.”

“We have names, sir.” Lanky one is muttering rather petulantly under his breath. Loud enough for Ron to hear. “Would be swell if you used them.”

“Would be swell if I knew those names, kid,” he shoots back.

“Liebgott.” Lanky bites off what is likely his own name. Gestures at the stabbed one next. “Talbert, or Tab.” Vaguely indicates the stabber with his right hand. “Smith.”

“Liebgott, Tab, Smith.” He repeats for good measure. “I’m Speirs.”

The one called Tab lets out a laugh that sounds almost like a scream. “We know, LT. You’re infamous.”

“Don’t listen to him, sir,” interrupts a new, soft voice, “he’s in pain.”

“Thank you for stating the obvious, Doc.” Liebgott’s voice has no jagged edges in it anymore now, lending a soft edge to words that could otherwise have been cutting. “Smith and his bayonet had a bad night.”

Ron steps back and lets the banter wash over him as the medic kneels beside Tab and gets to work. He isn’t altogether surprised to see altered morphine being injected before anything else happens. There is a lure to Tab’s features that speaks of seduction even now, despite the fact that the man hisses in pain and almost bats the medic’s hands away. He can’t look at the man for long.

“Escort him off the line if you need to,” he says to their medic. “Keep noise and light down as much as you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

He leaves the god-chosen Tab in the hands of a god-chosen medic and wonders, not for the first time, how many of them are scattered across the companies of this invasion force. How many of these men are off their suppressants, like himself, and how many of them are clinging to the last remnants of them, like Tab.

Albert Blithe isn’t god-chosen. He’s just terrified.

Ron heaves a sigh as he encounters the man wandering the line. There is a kind of skittishness in his movements that reminds him of a kitten he used to foster. He’d never quite managed to gain its trust, though it was a damn sight better than the flock of geese that decided to adopt him on his morning runs through the park.

He decides to shoot for reassurance, tonight.

“Everything is under control.”

Blithe follows him on his heels and makes more noise by himself than Ron ever has in his life. Maybe nothing like the kitten, then, after all. Ron briefly closes his eyes.

“You’ve got some nervous privates in your company,” he remarks. Gives Blithe a little opening, just in case. He’s not surprised to find the man agreeing with him. “They just don’t see how simple it is.”

“Simple?” Blithe frowns. “What is, sir?”

“Just do what you have to do.”

It really is that simple, when it comes down to it. Sometimes, he wonders why half of combat is spent in utter chaos when the objective is so obvious.

“Like you did on D-Day, sir?”

Blithe hasn’t lost all his nerve after all. He takes a deep breath. This is one of Dick’s men. He will be fine.

He turns to leave.

Blithe calls him back. Spins him his story about landing on D-Day. For the first time, he is grateful to not have been given the air sickness pills. There is fear and uncertainty in Blithe’s eyes even now as he recalls how alone he was. The man seems lost in memory, which propels Ron to ask his name again. He knows the name – Welsh had complained about him too much and Ron listens to everything that can keep him alive these days – but anchoring a soldier to his name is the quickest way to anchor them in the here and now.

“You want to know why you hid in that ditch, Blithe?” he asks, not unkindly.

The reply comes in a whisper. “I was scared.”

“We are all scared.”

He can still feel his heart catch in his throat at the memory of the jump. Still hears the thump of bodies hitting the ground every time he so much as closes his eyes. He barely makes it past five minutes before he believes he will die in some nameless space with his hand clenched around his knife and his eyes never again seeing open sky.

He admits to fear easily. Fear is an old friend in battle. Fear keeps him breathing just a little while longer.

He kneels before that fear now. Studies Blithe through this.

“You hid in that ditch because you think there is still hope.” He can see it in the boy’s eyes. They are too soft for this hard night. Too soft for combat. A tear rolls down the soldier’s cheek. “But, Blithe,” he continues, relentless in his pursuit of something steady in the soldier’s soul, “the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead.”

He has made his peace with that. He knows he will not live to see this war’s end. Doesn’t know how long he’ll serve. A week, a month, a year. Ten seconds from now, a minute from now, an hour from now. He doesn’t care to guess. He will die screaming. He will die bloody. He will die with his hands still choking the life out of the enemy.

“The sooner you’ll accept that,” he says, eyes alight with the inner knowledge that this is right and true and just, “the sooner you will function as a soldier is supposed to function.” Make them die screaming. Make them die bloody. “Without mercy.” He remembers the pleas of one prisoner. “Without compassion.” Rafferty was drunk and a danger to the whole company. “Without remorse.” _If I look back, I will never move forward._ He smiles, then, remembering her soft laugh and whispered gratitude carried toward him on the wind. “All war depends upon it.”

_She_ depends on it.

He almost says it. He almost speaks of war with the reverence he has always shown her, as though she is somehow entitled to the lives of soldiers like Blithe as much as she is to his own life. He supposes they all belong to her somehow, though she has never liked the term ‘children’ for the ones that follow her.

Mercy. Compassion. Remorse.

She fosters none of those in him. Always keeps him grounded with his eyes on the objective, regardless of what it will cost him to get there. There is no space inside her that allows him to second-guess orders, lower his weapon before an enemy, or reach out to help someone who isn’t on their side. Her world is one of absolutes.

It doesn’t matter that his voice almost trembles. It doesn’t matter that the flame with which he lights another cigarette flickers and nearly dies because his hands are shaking. He is scared out of his mind about the morning hours still to come.

Death looms over him and he does not yet wish to be found.

* * *

He resents the enemy.

It’s a fact he has gotten used to by now, being almost twenty days into the campaign and counting, but it’s something he finds great delight in repeating at present. He’s on the ground. He’s injured, if the sharp pain that shoots through him at the most inopportune times is anything to go by.

He resents the enemy. He _hates_ the enemy.

“Fucking hell,” he snaps. Directs it more at himself than at anyone else. “Get the fuck up. Come on. Come on.”

He makes it not even halfway to his feet before his knee buckles in a way that nearly makes him howl while his vision goes an off-kilter shade of white. He slams his fist into the earth again and again. The pain sears through his skin and bones. Lodges itself firmly between his breaths and gets stuck there.

He rages while earthbound. Rages against the restraints his human body now shows him, after about twenty days of little sleep and less food. Rages against being dropped into a fight with barely two platoons full of men by people who’ve learned tactics behind a desk instead of in battle.

They are fighting on too many fronts now. Half his men are in Fox Company’s vicinity, providing support for an intelligence mission of sorts, while the other half is spread out in the woodland that lays before him. He can hear gunfire. He can hear screams.

He should be there, but his body refuses to take another step.

“Lieutenant?”

It’s a voice he doesn’t know. He grasps one of his many blades in response. Grimaces as the edge of it cuts into his skin.

“Lieutenant Speirs?”

“Hmpf,” he grunts. Squints at the soldier who has dropped to his knees beside him. Doesn’t recognize the man at all. “Who’re you?”

“Grant, sir. Charles Grant.” The soldier’s hands trace his injuries rather expertly, though there is no white band around his arm that makes it his duty to do so. He hisses as the man’s firm pressure hits too close to the wound on his leg. “My men call me Chuck. I’m with Easy Company.”

“Little far out, aren’t you?”

“Not that far. Your company is kind of made up of a bunch of cowards right now, by the way, did you know? Most of them are holed up in the hedgerows while the battle rages on around them.”

He stares, incredulous, as Chuck Grant casually judges most of Dog Company while his hands grow slick with Ron’s blood. He pushes himself upright slightly. Regrets it almost right away as his vision goes white again and there’s thunder in his chest that is louder than any heartbeat he has ever had. There’s cotton in his mouth.

“Whoa, sir, you gotta stop moving.” Chuck’s hands are on his shoulders, on the base of his neck, on his face. Ron grimaces as he realizes he will be painted red with his own blood this way. He leans into the other man’s touch for a moment regardless, finding a strange kind of reassurance in the steadiness with which Chuck’s hands come to rest at his temples and in his hair. “Our medic needs to take a look at you first.”

“No time. Men need me.”

“Your men are in good hands, from what I’ve seen. Of course,” ponders the soldier out loud, “ _they_ might beg to differ. Not everyone likes a god messing with their affairs.”

Ron groans. “Fuck.”

“Yup.” The ‘p’ makes a popping sound as it leaves Chuck’s lips. “Fuck’s about right for this situation.” The man’s face crinkles into a frown. “Now where did I – hm – Roe! Roe, get your ass over here right now!”

Roe, as it turns out, is the name of Easy’s very exhausted medic. His voice slurs out a southern drawl of “Chuck, you’re gettin’ his blood all o’er him” before his pale face swims into focus. Roe’s eyes are the color of the sky before a thunderstorm. Gentle hands wrap around his knee and begin a series of movements he recognizes as Fate weaving its will.

He has seen Roe before, with the god-chosen who was stabbed by one of his own men. The man is stretched thin now. His gaze is haggard. Ron has heard many more tales of this particular medic since Carentan. Calming hands that could pull a dying man away from his final fate. A voice that can become the eye of the storm or the storm itself in equal measure.

“Wound like this, sir,” says the medic now, brow furrowed, “you’re due to be taken off the line. What was it, potato masher?”

Ron hums his assent to the latter. Isn’t surprised that Roe can identify the exact weapon just from looking at his knee. “I can’t be taken off the line, not now that Jameson’s already been pulled after Carentan and we are overrun with Fox’s lieutenants being complete idiots.” He doesn’t know how they wound up with Fox working with them this closely and, at this point, he’s too numb to care. “Doc, just patch me up as good as you can and let me get back to my men.”

Chuck Grant’s hand comes to rest on the back of his neck. “Doc, he’s off his suppressant.” The man sounds vaguely apologetic about having to make that announcement at all. Ron huffs out an incredulous breath. “His god is running riot on our right flank. Now’s not the time to pull him.”

Ron considers, for only a flash of a moment, that he could kiss Charles Grant and then probably be shot for doing so.

Out loud, he merely says “everyone I’ve met here is off their suppressant”.

Roe shoots him a long-suffering look. “They gave us enough for five days. We’ve been here for almost twenty.” The medic’s eyes could summon lightning at a glance. He shivers at the sight. “Believe me, I have argued. Think suppressants are a stupid idea anyway.”

“Hearing you two talk like that makes me very glad I’m not chosen by some god or the other.” Chuck ducks his head and lets out a soft laugh. “For the record, though, I think it’s stupid to put you on any pills. We need all the divine help we can get to win this war.” He pauses. His eyes fix on the dark that stretches out around them. “Even if the gods in question are, like, really terrifying.”

Heavy footsteps thunder toward them before Ron can wonder at the soldier’s final comment. He blinks against the bursts of light that appear in his line of vision. An army of stars, an armada of beacons, isn’t that what Harry Welsh had called it one night? He shakes his head. Hisses as Roe’s hands finish their ministrations on his knee.

She says his name and the whole sky is talking.

“Do you really need him?” Roe, bargaining. Roe, using a tone of voice that is willful and accommodating all at once. He can’t fault the medic for trying. “He’s barely fit to do his duty. Should be pulled off the line, ma’am.”

Her answering shrug is deceptively casual. She’s covered in muddy earth. Dust trails her footsteps. Her teeth glitter in the light, sharp and bloody as she smiles. She extends a feathered, clawed hand to him as though she does not care about his injuries. All that matters is the hunt and, later, the kill. He knows this.

“I’m fit enough for this, Doc,” he drawls, pain already shifting to the back of his mind just from being in her presence. “Thank you for the treatment.”

Ron rises to his feet as though nothing is the matter. His fingertips brush over her feathers before they settle at her wrist. The night around him is impossibly alive.

He will follow her everywhere within it.


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a tooth-puller to write in parts, but managed to become just what it needs to be. I could not let this whole fic go by without a mention of Ron's marriage, nor could I gloss over his adventures in my home country the Netherlands..

* * *

**England.**

“I can never tell what you’re thinking.”

He, on his part, can never tell whether his wife is looking for a fight or is just making conversation.

“Not thinking much of anything,” he says, which is the truth. He sits in the yard of his wife’s cottage in good old England with his knee resting on a cushion and a cold drink in his hand. “Just glad to be away from the French hedgerows.”

“That’s all you ever say. The weather, the mud, the hedgerows, the unhelpful French.” It’s a fight she wants, then. He sighs at the thought. “One would think you had a particularly bad vacation there, instead of what you actually did while you were at war.”

_Bodies on the floor around him. Rafferty’s eyes, unseeing and no longer part of this world. Conversations about fear. Conversations about hope. Goddamn Fox Company getting all of them lost twice over on the very last day until he had finally passed out from pain._

“There’s nothing else to say.”

“Bullshit.”

This kind of response, if he’s honest with himself, is the entire reason as to why he married her. She had been nothing but eyebrow quirks, snorts of disgust, and rolling eyes during an evening spent with Dog Company in the local pub. Had finally snapped at him that if he kept his men in check like this during peace, they were going to be no good during the war.

He’d liked her fight then. He doesn’t care for it much now.

“If you hated it this much, Ron, you wouldn’t want to go back to it so quickly.”

He gestures at his knee before he gestures at her swollen belly. Another mistake on the lengthy list of wrongs he’s done to her, if her sharp intake of breath is anything to go by.

“Can’t go back to it now,” he says. Tries to leave in the middle whether it’s because of the knee or because of the baby. “What I want has nothing to do with it.”

“You want war more than you want a family.”

His wife sounds bitter, but not hurt.

Sometimes, he wonders if she loves him. If she ever did. If she could, freshly widowed and flirting with him, ever feel anything at all.

“War is the only certainty I trust,” he says instead. His words are knives to his wife’s festering wound. He twists the blades deeper with every passing second he stays here and pretends to be at peace. “I don’t think I will survive this.”

“You won’t stay even if you do.” Her arms cradle her belly. Her voice is sharper than any blade he’s ever carried. “I just don’t want you to be so cruel about the time you have left.”

He sighs. Extends a hand toward her. He doesn’t want to spend the little time he has between battles fighting another, especially not one he knows he’s sure to lose.

“Come here,” he murmurs. Softens his eyes and his heart with some effort. “I’ll take care of you for as long as I can, okay?”

“And then you’ll go.”

“And then I’ll go,” he says.

* * *

He goes back to war.

Goes back to _her_ , according to his soon-to-be-ex wife, who may very well be right about him for the first time since he met her. And sure, when asked, he will come up with a nice story as to why his marriage only lasted a few months. He’ll provide for the baby that still hasn’t seen first light of day, but is never going to go back to hold that tiny body in his arms the way these men think you’re supposed to. He will do all the things a man should do, except be there for the woman he promised to stay with for the rest of his days.

He hopes his child will be nothing and yet everything like him. He hopes the child will live.

“Back so soon, Speirs?”

Nixon’s eyes catalog him and his remaining injuries with a critical eye. He doesn’t comment on why Ron carried all his stuff on base with him, nor does he remark upon the absence of a wedding band. It’s these little parts that make him consider Lewis Nixon somewhat of a friend, even when the man smells like he’s just taken a bath in his beloved VAT 69.

“He probably just heard about being dropped someplace new.” Welsh unceremoniously throws some papers off a spare bunk to make room for Ron. “This man has yet to cross the rest of Europe off his travel itinerary. Normandy was great except for the cows.”

“Cows?” Dick Winters walks into the room, looking as bemused as Ron feels. “I didn’t see any cows.”

“Oh. Wait.” Welsh scrunches up his face as he ponders it. “The cows were with Sobel, weren’t they?”

“Only you could compare the adventures of Herbert Sobel to the clusterfuck that was Normandy.” Nixon grins and takes a swig out of his canteen. “Three days, they said. Twenty-two days after those three days and they finally saw fit to pull us.”

“Better to be stuck in Normandy for a hundred days than with Sobel for one.”

Ron raises his eyebrow. Harry stops mid-motion. Nixon just laughs.

Dick flushes red as he realizes what he just said.

“Don’t let your men hear it, Dick,” warns Ron, “but I think you just admitted to hating someone more than you hate this war.”

“The war’s still young.” Harry’s face has broken out into an impish grin. “Like I told Kitty the other day, we have yet to actually be surrounded. I would very much like this war to involve being surrounded at one point.”

“And you call _me_ the one with the death wish,” comments Ron blandly to Nixon in passing. He dumps his belongings onto the spare bunk and fishes a cigarette out of his pocket. “Smoke, anyone?”

“Kitty was worried about you, Sparky.”

He inhales a gulp of smoke at that comment. Coughs until his eyes are wet.

“Said the only time you god-chosen are happy is when you’re doing whatever you’re called to do. She worried your injuries would take you away from that.”

“I’m still here.” Ron shrugs. Sinks down onto the bunk and stares at Welsh rather owlishly. “Tell her I said thank you, though.”

Nixon eyes his drink a little more warily, as if he cannot believe the reality he is in. Shakes his head. “I’m officially late for a meeting. She’ll be so cross.” He whistles low under his breath. “Any requests for scraps of wisdom?”

“Lew.” Dick’s voice is soft. “Ask her about the drop.”

“She’ll like it more coming from you.”

Ron puts his leg up on the cot. The sharp ache in his knee almost makes him reconsider coming back this quickly at all. He catches Harry’s grimace and shrugs as Nixon and Winters evolve into one of their half-verbal soft discussions. God-chosen by Wisdom, both of them, and remarkably stubborn over it too.

He closes his eyes and lets all the noise wash over him.

It’s the closest thing he has to home.

* * *

**The Netherlands.**

Operation Market Garden is, somehow, better and worse than Normandy all at once.

Better for the lack of hedgerows.

Worse for the lack of intelligence.

It’s not a surprise that he gets shot on his way back from danger.

There is something entirely hilarious about this, but the sharp and stabbing ache that shoots through him prevents him from making light of it. He curses as the next shot rings out. Flattens himself against the rubber boat’s belly and clenches his hands tighter around the oars. Decides to try and row, even when the lower half of his body now feels as though it’s caught fire.

“Fuck,” he hisses as the boat rocks enough to let cold water in, “fuck, fuck, fuck.”

It’s a small mercy that he is almost on the other shore already. He raises his head enough to glance at where he knows his men are waiting. Isn’t surprised to see that some have left cover and are already making their way over to where his boat will land. He knows he doesn’t necessarily instill such loyalty on a personal level. His safety mostly hinges on how much Dog Company truly fears their lieutenant.

They fear him more than they do the Krauts, at least.

He smirks as he hears the telltale pop-pop-pop of suppressant fire. Grimaces as the white-hot pain shoots through him again as he attempts to make land. He has no desire to tumble into the icy water that he already made his way through once.

He’s soaking wet, exhausted, and more than a little pissed off.

“Sir?”

He groans a reply that is interspersed with new curses as his company’s hands lift him out of the boat. Hisses out an almost-threat as they get dangerously close to where his uniform’s gone slick with blood. His vision crumbles into darkness at the edges when they drag him onto dry ground and keep him out of the line of fire.

“Medic! Medic!” A call goes up around him, with slightly more panic in its notes than he thinks he good and well deserves. “Med–”

He blinks when the call dies out abruptly. He hasn’t heard a bullet stop the voices from ringing out. Hasn’t heard a damn thing that could make them go all quiet like that. His fingers clench around clumps of dirt as he attempts to push himself upright.

“Ron?”

_Oh._ That explains the silence.

“Hi,” he says, rather conversationally, as her warm hands touch his clammy face. Bites back a groan as her hands stray toward his back. He snarls out a warning before she can touch him further. “Don’t you fucking touch my ass, you hear?”

“Trust you to get shot in the ass like some amateur.”

“Well, I live to let you down.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she shoots back. Her hands really do find his wound as she speaks. She’s careful, sure, but he recoils as much as he can all the same. Her next words aren’t directed at him at all. “Where’s your medic? Are those assholes that shot at him still there?”

“Uh, medic’s on his way.” Philips’s voice barely wavers. Good man. “Affirmative to the latter, ma’am.”

“Ma’am,” she says, all grim amusement at the title. “Well then. Please watch my charge.”

Her voice shifts from warmth to something far sharper. He claws at the ground now as his lungs contract, his stomach plummets, his hair stands on end. Her hand finds his shoulder and there’s a clawing motion in that as well, all talons and hurt, that digs into him until it finds purchase in the steady thudding of his heart. He roars. Roars out pain, roars out rage, roars out belonging until the pressure drops. Blood rushes in his ears. His insides twist, sharp and hot at once, and he still has the audacity to smile about it.

There is a heartbeat in the earth beneath his body. The dirt itself shifts with every breath he takes, as though it wishes to welcome him home and yet repel his advances any way it knows how. There is blood in his mouth, blood in his throat, blood pouring from his nose, blood in the earth and blood demanding payment. He’s made of rust and bone and all the things that the dawn can’t touch.

He has always loved the sky, for it is home to her. He hears the caws of her birds taking flight overhead. Hears the screams soon after, distant and melodic in a way no song on earth can ever be. The wind sings him back to her.

He plummets to the ground in perpetual motion.

* * *

_Ron dreams the world awake._

_He is wrapped up in her arms. He is falling through the sky._

_His mouth fills with blood. He swallows it all, down, down, deeper down, into the river beneath his skin that calls to him. There is a pulse within the liquid, a song within the motion, a humming sound that lodges itself near his throat like a fluttering bird willing to escape its cage._

_Sand on his lips sand in his lungs sand dripping through the hourglass containing the last of his life and all the shards digging into his skin saying “remember remember” while his mind is bl–_

_A fire blazes to life within._

_He bares his teeth. Screams, screams, screams louder still._

_Still here. Still here. Still here._

_His fingers wrap around steel. Welcome, welcome sharp steel._

_He comes back to life within her._

_He’s back across the river. Back on the side of the riverbed that the enemy swarmed after they noticed him. Back among the enemy on decidedly unequal footing._

_Her birds claw at their eyes, obscure their faces, shriek louder than anything these soldiers scream to one another. The enemy dies bloody. Dies alone. The glint of steel dances across their throats faster than the eye can see. Talons dig into his shoulder._

_To one like him, war is all there is._

* * *

**England.**

“I lost my suppressant somewhere between the patrol and getting shot.” He knows the excuse is flimsy. Knows that some of his vitals show an upward line where there’s supposed to be nothing at all. Knows that uptick in vitals is not due to missing just one pill. He knows, but the lie still tumbles from his lips. He doesn’t stumble on it once. “The mission took longer than we anticipated. The Krauts spotted me at the last second.” He blinks and shakes his head. Remembers the gunfire more than the cold, cold water. “They injured me while I was already on the way back. She.. took offense.”

“A _god_ took offense?”

He raises an eyebrow. Scoffs at the disbelief. “She would,” he states. “She doesn’t take kindly to someone messing with what she considers to be hers.”

“She decimated their entire platoon. Do you think this is natural behavior for a deity to display, lieutenant Speirs?”

“Good for her,” he says. He refuses to rise to the bait. Instead, he smiles a slow and toothy smile that sees the lieutenant recoil from the foot of his bed. “Wish I could have seen it better, but I was a little preoccupied. I was quite badly injured, you see.” A pause. His smile never reaches his eyes. He keeps his face a careful blank and tries to forget blood gushing out of the enemy’s throat. “Wish I could have helped.”

The other officer takes an involuntary step backward at that latter admission, too. Ron taps the blankets once, twice, as though he fires an invisible weapon. His eyes never stray from their faces. They’re young, likely academy, likely to have never landed in combat before. He can’t fault them for their innocence.

“Your god s-shows up in person like this regularly? To p-protect you?”

He blinks slowly. Stares. The officers refuse to meet his eyes. They are looking everywhere but right at him. Their eyes are on the shadows around his bed, as though she is liable to burst forth from them any second now. He half-wishes she would, if only so they could stop asking him increasingly stupid questions.

“Doesn’t everyone’s?” he asks, slower still, making his eyes grow cold the way she taught him long ago. He wills the tremor in his muscles to fade. “I don’t know what you’ve been told about god-chosen sol–”

“It’s not natural.” The taller of the two finally meets his eyes. Grim amusement coils in his belly when he sees the officer’s face blanch moments later. “We’ve dealt with some of you god-chosen before. None of them have ever claimed this utter nonsense about being protected by them.”

He blinks as this taller one throws a medicine bottle onto his bed. It rattles with an unfamiliar sound, so whatever is inside them is not the same old stuff he’s been taking since he hit his teens and landed in trouble. Not the same as the stuff they put him on when he was five years old and screaming bloody murder, either, though he supposes the tranquilizing component from those is due to make a comeback.

“You will be put on these stronger suppressants before you go back to active duty,” decides the second officer. Ron shrugs acquiescence. “Your medic will be instructed to check your vitals once every three days. Failure to comply with their advice will see you pulled off the line, lieutenant Speirs.” The man sounds as if he would like nothing to happen more than that. “Please be advised that any more extremely violent outbursts from your god will see you declared unfit for duty altogether.”

“Have you been in combat?” he asks, then, with remnants of blood beneath his nails and talon scratches still on his shoulders. The two men share a look. Shake their heads. He smiles a lazy smile at them this time. Keeps his words level, but his eyes wild. “Gentlemen, I am war-chosen. This is her time. _Her_ sandbox that we are all playing in.” He tilts his head. Considers. “The most I can promise you is that she will not intervene on my behalf again.”

He doesn’t know if he can hold the promise. Doesn’t think it matters when he’ll be behind enemy lines before the week is done and they will be stuck right here with their asses stapled to their desk chairs. Doesn’t think it matters at all when he knows D Company’s medics are shit-scared of doing anything to upset him.

His hand closes around the pill bottle. He pops the cap off. Shakes a pill or two loose from the inside. Almost laughs at how they seem to contain midnight itself in their blackness. He picks one up. Sighs. Tips it into his mouth and swallows it dry.

His breath evens out. His finger stops tapping a merry pace atop the blanket.

The pain hits, after.

He doesn’t scream this time.

* * *

**Mourmelon-le-Grand, Belgium.**

Lewis Nixon has always been three degrees south of trouble and twice as handy in a crisis. It’s something Ron can’t help but appreciate, even when the man’s eyes are too shrewd for his liking and his closeness to Winters forms a semi-liability at the most inopportune moments. There’s a lack of decorum that he can appreciate, although he is sometimes all too keenly aware that Nixon and he do not even inhabit the same universe.

“Speirs! Heard you got shot in the ass!”

“Heard someone just about took your head clean off,” he retorts at the grinning intelligence officer. “Can’t say I can tell much of a difference.”

“Ah, well,” Nixon nods sagely, “you still carry that stick real far up your ass too so I’m guessing _that_ wound’s not too bad either.”

Ron almost rolls his eyes at the comment. If there is one thing he likes most about Lewis Nixon, he decides, it’s the man’s utter lack of fear in the face of danger. He still can’t tell if it’s because the officer chooses to go through life mostly drunk, but decides that it really doesn’t matter. Nixon is nothing but deadly efficiency when he sets his mind to things.

“Speaking of sticks.. any chance you can start dangling a carrot in front of command instead?” he asks. Sighs at Nixon’s raised eyebrow. “I need them off my case before we make it back to the line.”

Nixon’s whistle is low and appreciative. “I might’ve heard a thing or two about that. It’ll cost you.”

“I have payment.”

The look on the intelligence officer’s face as he produces not one but two bottles of VAT 69 is priceless. He allows himself a quick, toothy grin at being able to surprise the man at all. He knows Winters is going to be dismayed to find even more alcohol in their tent, though Welsh might just spirit it away before the man can find out. That, or they could just drink it all in one sitting.

Nixon seems to be aiming for the latter option.

“Do you want some, Sparky?”

He grimaces at the nickname. “Just get me a bottle of that beer I know you and Welsh hid from Dick.” He pauses. “Unless you drank it all.”

“That Dutch swill? You’re welcome to it. Doesn’t provide enough of a kick.”

“I am not going to fight the Germans while drunk, Nix.” He explains it the way he would explain squares and circles to a toddler. “Hammond might, though, if you talk him into it real nicely.”

“He’s a good kid. He’s been causing all sorts of havoc since you gave him to us.”

Ron takes the proffered beer bottle and takes a long sip. It slides down his throat like the honeyed tea he prefers back home. He hums noncommittally. Knows he’ll miss the young soldier out on the line now that he has made his home in intelligence. Hopes that Lewis Nixon, despite being perpetually questionable in his actions, will shield him from the worst kinds of harm. He levels a dark look at Nixon.

“You’d better take good care of him.”

“He did say you’re his favorite lieutenant.” Nixon throws back the VAT 69 like it was first handed to him in a bottle while he was still in his crib. “Announced it to a room full of guys who’d just heard about the shit you got up to in Holland, even. It was fun to watch them go all white as a sheet.” The intelligence officer chuckles and uses his bottle to point at Ron. “You, my esteemed scary friend, raised that boy right. A little on the reckless side, maybe, sure, but efficient.”

He shakes his head. Isn’t sure how he became Nixon’s friend, but can’t very well argue that point now that they are knocking back alcohol together and talking like they did back in Toccoa. Half a dozen nights on sentry duty in a row and he had been fully prepared to deck Fox Company’s latest idiots in the face. Welsh, damn him, had been shouting encouragement from the next post over. It took Nixon’s ire to resolve the thing without violence – a fact that Welsh probably never quite forgave – that made him reconsider everything he thought he knew about someone he’d previously categorized as ‘little rich boy playing a game’.

“Was the intel I got you any good?” he asks, making a face as he realizes alcohol and these new suppressants likely won’t mix well. He already feels something come to a stuttering halt in his belly. The burn in his throat is less like honey and more like a hot poker slipping down his airways. He coughs. “I tried to memorize as much as possible. Not sure how well I did on the German bits. I don’t speak a lick of that.”

Nixon whistles, low and appreciative. “Thought you might speak some of it. I ran the parts that were unclear by Liebgott before passing them on. We managed to act on most of it.” A pause as the man actually pours himself a glass of VAT 69 and tips back even more alcohol before refilling it to the brim. “Probably saved half a company. You’ll be pleased to know it was Fox.” The grin is unapologetic. “Maybe we signed you up for the wrong job.”

“How’s that, Nix?” he asks with a sigh.

“A memory like that, you could’ve been in intelligence.”

He really snorts then. Looks at his red-rimmed nails, his muddy boots, his array of knives stashed everywhere on his body by now. “No, thank you.” Snorts again. “Not my style.”

“You swam all the way across the Neder-Rhine, spied on the Germans, memorized half a dozen interesting facts about their future movements and tactics, stole a map and took it back here, overheard an important conversation you committed to memory despite most of it being in a language you don’t speak, got the hell out of there, came back across the Neder-Rhine, got shot in the ass for your troubles, and sent your god to kill them all. Summed up like that,” Nixon whistles once again, “it’s pretty damn impressive.”

“Just one correction. I didn’t send her to do anything.”

Nixon blinks. “Well. That’s even better.”

“You’re crazy.” Ron clinks his beer bottle against Nixon’s dramatically full glass of poison. “I suppose being tied to Wisdom makes you like that.”

“Says who?”

“Says the person who _you_ claim should’ve worked intelligence.”

Nixon takes a swig of his drink. Contemplates. “I still hate you,” the sharp-eyed, too-knowing captain says then. “Also, Dick is chosen by her too. Surely that counts for something?”

“I hate you too,” smiles Ron. Tips the beer back until he feels something inside him give way. “It has always been very apparent to me that Dick is the brains of this operation here.”

“Hell, I’ll drink to that.”


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One scene with Ron's god in this chapter was the closing scene of the writing process on this fic, as I write in non-linear fashion, and I wish to mention _White Winter Hymnal_ by Fleet Foxes as a song that wrapped itself around some bits of this writing as I went along. In other words.. I am thrilled to finally move things into the woods around Bastogne.

* * *

**The Bois Jacques, Belgium.**

He’s a city boy with a lingering fondness for open horizons and clear skies.

It’s a simple thing, really. Wake up in the noise. Pour a cup of black coffee. Walk out to the waterfront. Inhale the city. Exhale the restlessness. Rinse. Repeat.

He barely has a chance to breathe, here.

The woods around Bastogne are the most stifling place he has ever been in. He loses more men in the first week than he did in the entire campaign so far. Frostbite, freezing to death in their foxholes, and a couple of enemy skirmishes on the edges of the line. He rubs his eyes and yawns.

Dog’s right behind Easy on the line. It’s the only thing he likes about being stuck in the Ardennes with the enemy all around them. It gives him excellent opportunities to touch base with people who aren’t complete dunderheads. They are strewn out around the forest. The line holds, barely, and they are on their own.

He huffs out a breath. Hugs himself as he steps closer to the thin line between their companies. Decides to strike up conversation.

“Still think being surrounded is a good thing?”

“Gods.” Harry Welsh jumps a foot into the air at his approach. Actually presses his hand to his chest, as if to stop his heart from thudding out of it. “I’m getting you one of those collars they put on a cat. You know, the jingling kind.”

“Think the Germans would mistake that for a festive jingle and leave us the hell alone? Because that’s the only way you’ll get me to wear one of those.”

“Thought you liked being at odds with the Krauts?”

“I do.” He hums noncommittally. “I like it better when we’re not outnumbered.”

“Where’s that sense of adventure, huh?”

“Buried under five yards of snow.” He gestures at the white ground that stretches out before them. At the white fog that surrounds them. At the white-covered trees rising up around them. “This is the worst part of war. The fucking waiting game.”

Welsh snaps his fingers. Points at him. “You get it.”

“How’re you and yours?” He digs into his pockets. Drags out a battered pack of smokes. Knows better than to offer them to Harry. “Settling in okay?”

“We are _fucked_.” Harry lets out a nervous laugh. “I’ve half a mind to start drinking and put Nix to shame. The only thing keeping this company afloat is Carwood Lipton.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Still the most competent man I know, always checks to see if you have a blanket, makes excuses for Norman Dike’s enduring absence.”

Ron shakes his head. Lights his smoke. “I still can’t figure out where he goes.” The cigarette dangles from his lips a moment before he inhales deeply and picks it up between his fingers. “He’s nowhere near our line, not even by accident, and Fox hasn’t seen him either.”

“Fox didn’t see those Krauts on patrol, either, though,” points Welsh out rather sourly. They’d lost three men to that sorry event. “You ever figure out where he goes, you let me know.”

“Will do.”

“How’re your men?”

“Tired and ready to kill, as always.” He flashes Harry a quick smile that is as cold as the snow that surrounds them. “Just like me.”

He doesn’t linger in Harry’s presence any longer than necessary. Touches base with different men like this in the first few weeks, though most soldiers of Easy and Fox visibly recoil when he approaches their foxholes. He figures that they’re not doing so badly as long as they keep recoiling from him more than they do their shared enemy.

Morale is scarce. Supplies are scarcer. He begins collecting a small hoard of things in response to their line being cut off. For every leaving or dead soldier, there is a pack of medical supplies and leftover food. If his company is lucky, they leave scarves or something else that is warm enough to postpone death with. He holds on to a few personal effects and labels them carefully. Will send them out with the letters to the families if the line ever connects back with the outside world again.

War is this, too. The long pause. The three steps forward, two steps back deal they have going on now. The game that only people like Winters and Nixon, guided by Wisdom, are seemingly capable of making sense of if the trickled-down orders for patrols that come their way are anything to go by. The game that feels like he’s about to inhale and then lose himself to the open sky.

He thinks he will enjoy falling.

* * *

The woods of the Bois Jacques come alive this late at night.

It’s supposed to be a quiet time, with men stuck in their foxholes under strict light and sound discipline. Then again, it’s not really the men who weave and dart between shadows and moonlight. It’s not their whispers that carry into the trees themselves, fill the woods with chatter and discord, make the earth itself come alive around them.

He’s witnessed more gods than men in these nights. Tricksters whose laughter carries and dies, messengers whose swift passing resembles the flutter of birds taking flight, elemental deities who can make the woodlands feel like an ocean, and beyond it all the footsteps of that elusive companion called death.

Ron supposes it’s a natural thing to have happen when the supply lines have dried up to the point where not a single one of them has any suppressants left to take. The Germans, on the other side of the line, responded to the increased strangeness in the woods by minimizing their own patrols. It makes Ron wonder, at times, if they feel as though their gods have abandoned them.

Warmth spreads across his cheeks, brushes his hair, embraces him lightly as he huddles down in his foxhole and tries to forget about the cold.

“Sometimes,” he says to his god, “I think you do this on purpose.”

“Do what? Keep you from freezing?”

“Remind me there’s something called warmth in this world,” he grumbles as he stretches out in the narrow hole. “Remind me there was a time when all I knew was warmth.”

Her laughter joins the stars scattered out above his head. The shadows in his foxhole cling to her body, appearing naked and scarred this time for reasons he dares not fathom, but her eyes gleam like the embers of a fire he hasn’t seen since he landed in hell. Her teeth flash pure white in the dim light of the moon. She’s clearer now than she was in Normandy. Sharper, brighter, warmer than in the Netherlands.

“Seeing you like that makes me freeze even more.” He launches the complaint without any vitriol behind it. Enjoys the fact that she’s here at all, hiding out with him in this foxhole. “I don’t know why you insist on walking the line naked sometimes.” He laughs and shakes his head. “Though, well, the Krauts did forget to shoot at us when you appeared between us and them on that last patrol.”

“Back in the old days, my charges fought like this sometimes. None of that fancy armor, or the uniform you favor. Just them and the blades, or whichever weapon they chose.” She gestures in broad movements as she speaks. Scoots over to his position until she is kneeling between his legs. He watches, mesmerized, as the shadows take on the shapes of battles long past. Some of them cling to her bare skin and dance battlefields upon them. “In combat, sometimes, my charges met each other as enemies. The lines can be muddled. Being naked together under sun and stars, I don’t know.. I think it keeps us honest. Reminds us we come from the same point of origin.”

“You are in me, I am in you,” he whispers. Shakes his head as he finally remembers bedtime stories from long ago, told in hushed voices after his mother left him alone in the dark without so much as a kiss goodnight. He grew up on watching shadows play out battles on the walls of his room. Even the suppressants could not take them from him. Here, in the middle of this waiting game, seeing those same shadows on the walls of his foxhole brings tears to his eyes. “Love,” he called her then and he calls her now, “will you stay?”

She flows into his arms and suffuses him with warmth. She could almost be human like this, except that her skin feels too hot to the touch and her presence atop him covers more of him than her small physically present frame feasibly could. Ron hums, contented with the heat, as her head comes to rest on his heart and her hands curl around his uniform as though she means to cling to him all night.

He knows he’s not alone in doing this. He’s seen Nixon and Winters, their god resting between them, as well as Easy’s Talbert, curled up against his deity’s side. Some of his own men rest only when their hands touch air or water. The last time he fell asleep in her arms only to find Philips frowning down at him in the early morning hours. There are rumors flying around in the companies about more than just him, now, although he picks up on the general undercurrent of terror that follows him still.

He doesn’t want to close his eyes. Doesn’t want to wake to find more chaos, or more waiting hours ahead of him. He doesn’t want the morning to come, doesn’t want the night to end, doesn’t want to set one more foot out of this foxhole. He wraps his arms around her and shivers.

“Ron, settle down,” she murmurs. She sounds drowsy, as though the heat she produces is slowly making her fall asleep. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

He clings to her like a lifeline and pretends there are no more tomorrows.

* * *

“Patrol duty falls to Fox today. Easy will lead one patrol further out to test the line tomorrow.”

“Philips said you shouldn’t go too far down to the west access road.” Ron taps the map between them for clarification. “We lost half the mortar squad to that bullshit set-up the Krauts had going on there.” He can’t say their names out loud. Just sees their faces. Mann. McNally. Richards. Reed. More losses to an already spread-thin battalion. “We set up some traps around that area once we cleared it out. Heard they were quite effective.”

“Trussed up like a goose, just in time for Christmas. I’ll have you know Hammond punched the air and praised your name even more than I did.” Nixon’s smile is positively vicious. “We do so appreciate your war contributions, Sparky.”

“You’ve got Daniels to thank for that idea, to be fair.”

“Daniels? Formerly Fox Company Daniels?”

“He’s efficient.” Ron bares his teeth in what could pass as a grin. “His father’s a game hunter. Daniels learned how to set all the traps long before he learned how to read.”

“I have a question.”

“Yes, Harry?” Dick sounds vaguely hopeful at the possibility of getting away from this conversation. “What is it?”

“Does command just take one look at the replacement kids and put all the really disturbing ones with Dog Company, or is this set of cold-eyed killers something you cultivate in-company the way other people tend to their plants and flowers?”

Nixon cackles out a laugh at the look of dismay that crosses Dick’s face. Harry just folds his arms and stares, unimpressed, in a way that silently demands an answer. The medic, Roe, looks like he would rather be anywhere but having this conversation in the middle of a freezing cold forest with nothing but snow and misery for company.

“I tend to them the way other people tend to their pets.” He smirks at Harry. “When they kill someone, they get a biscuit.”

“Ron.”

“He asked.”

“You’re lying.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Am I really.”

“It answers _so_ many of my other questions, Dick, please don’t ruin the occasion.”

Dick Winters looks like he wants to be anywhere but here. It’s a common affliction for most of them these days, holed up in the Bois Jacques woods as they are, but the hollow-eyed stare Dick levels at Welsh really speaks volumes. They are trying to keep their heads above water. Most days, it feels like they are failing to even recognize they are immersed in water at all.

“You’re all dismissed.” Dick waves his hand and gestures at the trees around them. “Go on. At the rate you’re going, you’ll get loud again and we will have to deal with another shelling when that happens.”

There is really no arguing with logic when laid out like this.

Harry darts off to inform the waiting Compton and Lipton of the latest news. Nixon and Winters already have their heads bent together and are whispering in half-sentences before Ron takes his own leave.

The medic doesn’t linger, either, but Doc Roe’s movements are a little sluggish. One of the medics needs to sit in on meetings like this, mostly to memorize tactical positions and be aware of which men will potentially cry out for a medic. He doesn’t think Roe will remember much of anything. He’s a dead man walking, as are the other medics. The lack of supplies has been the hardest on them by far.

He stretches his hand out just in time. Touches the medic’s armband with casual reverence.

“Roe.”

“Lieutenant Speirs.” Roe’s voice is cautious, but not fearful. “What can I do for ya, sir?”

He fishes around in his pockets until his hands close around what he is looking for. Thrusts the cigar box at the medic rather unceremoniously. Scrapes his throat as the man’s icy fingers touch his own before taking it. “Morphine,” he says. Keeps his eyes fixed on the treeline instead of on the man’s too dark, too stormy eyes. “It’s not much, mind. Heard you were low on it.”

“Don’t your medics need this, sir?”

“Dog is in reserve. We can spare it.” _I’d give it to you even if we couldn’t_ , he thinks. “There are a couple of hairpins and makeshift bandages in there, too.”

“Hairpins, huh?”

“Remarkably efficient, those. I’m sure you can find a use for them.”

“Hate to be that guy, sir, but d’ya by any chance have some spare scissors too?”

“Scissors?” He almost pronounces it the way Roe does, all southern twang just like she used to sound when she sat with him after a nightmare. Catches himself at the last second. “I’ll take a look around. Krauts might have some.”

Roe fixes him with a rather wary stare. “Don’t go through any trouble for it, sir.”

“Trouble?” He smiles, then, all teeth and hunt. “It’d be a nice change from all this damn cold, doc. Might even get us warm.”

* * *

He never manages to find scissors. Trouble, however, trouble is a different matter altogether.

Dog is put on patrol duty for the first time in five days. Between Daniels, Philips, and himself, the choice to go Hinkle-hunting is an easy one. They’d all heard the story of one of Easy’s men practically falling atop a Kraut in a foxhole. Half a dozen jokes about the Kraut’s unfortunately named companion Hinkle later, they had resolved to find themselves some foxholes of their own to haunt.

The Krauts were getting cocky. Mistake one. Hinkle and his band of friends should never have been close enough to Easy’s line to be stumbled over. Mistake two. They did not expect Dog Company to go out on a hunt. Mistake three.

Ron has always relished the chase. He thrives on the chaos of it, on the sound of scrambling feet and muttered curses that eventually evolves into screams and cut-off breaths. There is honor in coming to the enemy on what it believes to be its own turf. He’ll have none of that cowardly shelling these bastards have been throwing their way.

Easy’s men are falling like the trees in the forest. Injured, shell-shocked, dead. The presence of their gods goes with them as they fade – the trickster voices a mere whisper, the vengeance abating, the fire a little less warm – and there’s nothing Ron can do to fix that.

He can just honor it in his own way.

Dog Company’s patrol jumps into the foxholes.

He bares his teeth. Draws a single blade during his own jump. It hums to life in the quiet as the Kraut soldier scrambles to his feet. Blood spurts out onto the snow before the soldier can raise his weapon.

The second is trickier. This one’s got a bayonet. Ron lays his blade on the edge of the foxhole. Grins as he peers down into scared eyes. Catches the end of the bayonet in a way that nicks his palms and makes blood drip down to his wrists. He tugs, wrenches, pulls it free from the enemy’s grasp. Laughs as he turns the man’s own weapon onto him.

Hands wrap around his throat even as the second one dies.

He reaches for his knife in the snow with his left hand. Pulls his other knife free from its sheath against his heart. Grins, feral, breathless, as he slashes the other knife up toward his own throat and meets enemy hands. The left blade sings to life in his palm even as his own blood slickens his hold upon it. There is a roar in the midst of chaos and he doesn’t know if it’s his or the enemy’s.

The third, too, falls to his blades. Dies badly, Ron notes in disgust. Clutching his severed fingers, bleeding from a dance of cuts both small and great inflicted upon his skin, and whimpering for a mercy that has long been absent from these woods.

Philips and he take the enemy’s mortar squad together. For Mann. For McNally. It’s the lone sentiment he allows himself. None of those deaths are quick. Philips’s smile edges toward insanity with every blow. Ron laughs, bleeding from his lip and hands, as Philips’s nose breaks and the man retaliates by breaking an enemy’s spine.

They still laugh as they join Daniels, who’s taken to shooting at the fleeing enemy in a haphazard fashion. None of the Krauts know where the bullets are going to land. There’s terror in the air, thick and relentless, as Daniels gives chase and fires just that much faster.

“Had enough?” roars Philips after them. “Fucking cowards!”

“Daniels, not too far!” calls Ron. “Leave their line alone for now.”

“What line?” sniggers Daniels, swinging his gun onto his back as he rushes back to their location. “Don’t think they got much of one now, huh?”

“They won’t after we take Foy.”

Daniels and Philips share a look between them that he has come to identify as how-do-we-tell-the-lieutenant-he-is-crazy.

“How do we do that?”

“Winters has a plan,” he says, as if that explains everything.

“If that plan involves Dike, I want no part of it.”

“Adventure, Daniels..”

“Live well, die tomorrow? Sir, all due respect, you can go ahead and die alone.”

Ron’s laughter echoes around the Bois Jacques.


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This.. is one of my favorite chapters in this fic. Also my favorite episode of BoB, which is probably not a coincidence. There is a bit of dialogue from canon in this one. Anything else I say about this chapter will be a spoiler, so..

* * *

**Foy, Belgium.**

Lieutenant Dike is one of the most dangerous men Ron has ever had the misfortune of meeting.

The man is the latest of Easy’s commanding officers. Ron isn’t sure on if someone can be called in command of anything when they are never around to lead the men, but at this point he can tell by the twitch around Winters’s eyes that it is far too late to ask for that sort of clarification. He almost asks first sergeant Lipton once after a discussion in which Dike said everything without saying anything at all, but Lipton’s eyes are tired and he keeps fussing over George Luz’s current lack of a scarf more than he does Dike’s lack of command.

He supposes they all try to keep control over the little that they can, even when the world itself is blasted to pieces all around them.

“We still in reserve, sir?” Philips’s voice is low but calm beside him. “Or are we the ones taking point on this?”

“Easy’s taking point. Dike’s going to lead them into Foy. We will follow, eventually.”

“Permission to announce they’re all going to die, sir?”

“Permission denied, Philips.” He shoots the man a look. Philips’s dark eyes look exhausted. His face is pale and drawn in the sunlight, as though he has been cooped up in darkness far too long. “You know as well as I do that we don’t have the manpower left to lead the assault ourselves. Chances are we’ll be absorbed into Easy alongside the little that remains of Fox.”

The losses weigh heavy on his mind. He has lost more men to the cold since Christmas than he has to the Germans. He’s lost even more of them to their own minds, wrapped up in the absence of friends and suffering for it, and to the waiting game that finally seems to come to an end today. Philips is the only one left from mortar squad. Albrighton the only one he still trusts will keep his gun steady under a barrage of enemy fire. Daniels, once Fox and now Dog, is the lone man who has enough energy left to curse the Germans in increasingly creative ways while making life hell for them.

For every man that is still here, there is another man who isn’t.

He isn’t sure how he is still alive. By all rights, he shouldn’t be. Not after the gunfight that left five men bleeding out in the snow around him while he stood there and remained unscathed. Not after that barrage which saw Easy’s numbers depleted and all their foxholes covered by the remnants of what was once a forest. Not after the amount of dead he left in his wake.

“You can’t be fucking serious, sir. Look at him. He’s fucking yawning.”

He follows Philips’s too-pointed gaze until he finds Dike. Finding Dike is also finding Dick Winters, who looks as concerned as Ron feels right about now. Sure enough, Dike yawns once again as Dick attempts to explain whichever tactics are least likely to get Easy killed. Ron shakes his head in mounting disgust.

“Philips. Tell the men to be on high alert.” He makes the decision on his own. Is quite certain that he will get yelled at for it before the day is done. “Let Albrighton know he needs to attach himself to I Company along with Conley, Daniels, and Potter. Tell him to keep his head down while he does it.”

“Sir.”

All too soon, the word for Easy to move out is given. He moves closer to Dick and Nixon surreptitiously as the men begin their trek toward Foy. Remains on the outskirts of their circle, which now also includes Sink and some officers Ron has barely ever seen in his life. There is a lot riding on this. This is their only way out of the woods that doesn’t signal retreat.

They have been surrounded since October.

He will never yield. They will never surrender.

There is only one way.

Easy recognizes it, even if their commanding officer does not. He watches as Lipton pulls the men together. Observes Luz darting between the lines, radio on his back, and relaying messages in a strange sort of shorthand that seems innate to all trickster-chosen. The red-haired leader he now knows is called Malarkey is ultimately the one to give the tightest orders mixed in with the headiest form of attack Easy’s depleted lines can muster. Even Jack Foley, never having been involved this closely in full-scale assault, reacts with a tactical awareness previously foreign to the man.

Everyone does what they must.

Everyone except command.

His pulse spikes as he witnesses the men freeze in their tracks just outside Foy. They are deer caught in the headlights of oncoming cars. They are lambs realizing the slaughterhouse is already present beneath their feet. They are leaderless save for Lipton shouting himself hoarse and attempting to get as many of them to safety as possible.

Dike has sunk down behind a haystack. He doesn’t appear to be moving.

“Is he shot?” Nixon’s murmured question sounds vaguely hopeful. “Did he get hit?”

Ron shakes his head. For Dike to get hit, he would need to stop hiding first. It’s a fact that seems increasingly less likely to happen as time moves forward and the man is still behind the haystack. Dike’s head tilts toward the sky only a moment. It’s enough to signal that everything that could possibly go wrong just did. The strange movements of the men still on the ground with Dike confirm that whatever orders are given are the wrong ones.

He watches, incredulous, as half of Easy moves into positions that count as them falling back.

“Is it too soon to say I told you so?”

“Philips.”

Ron’s tone is one of warning, but he cannot very well argue with his sergeant. He doesn’t take his gaze off the town that stretches out before them. Failure is not an option. If they can push further into town, they will be able to hook up with I Company on the other side. If they take out the gunner near the rooftop, they can clear the haystacks. All of the movements seem so clear to him out here as he stands at the edge of the forest that has been his home for months.

None of the movements are clear to Dike. He closes his eyes as Foley – is that Foley? It must be – and some of the men attempt to move around the town. He has no doubt those were Dike’s orders. Most of the men are promptly shot for their efforts.

Ron sighs. Puts his hand on Philips’s arm. There is a decision to be made.

“If the worst comes to pass, this company will fall to you. Don’t fuck it up.”

“Lieutenant?”

He moves closer to the brass and ignores Philips’s incredulous questions spilling out behind him. Dick is almost beside himself as Dike refuses to respond to any radio calls. Those are still _his_ men out there, despite Dick’s promotion and the fact that he hasn’t commanded Easy since Normandy. Any officer associated with Easy knows that they will have Dick Winters to contend with if things go wrong. He doesn’t envy Dike in this moment, not as Dick steps forward until he is clear of the treeline and about to join his men.

Duty and colonel Sink halt Dick Winters in his tracks. Make him turn around. Make him turn back.

Sink is still talking even as Dick moves back toward safety, but Dick roars something else right over him.

“Speirs! Get yourself over here!” He is already moving his feet before Dick finishes his shout. The next orders are some of the best he has ever heard in his life. “Get out there and relieve Dike and take that attack on in.”

He doesn’t reply. Doesn’t call out a “yes sir” the way any man from Easy would. Doesn’t so much as nod. He simply takes off.

He runs.

On the way to Foy, Ron Speirs prepares himself for death.

He isn’t surprised to find her footsteps following in his wake. The flutter of wings rushes past him toward town. Crows swoop in toward the dead and dying, eliciting surprised shouts from friend and foe alike. He knows the crows to be a comfort to dying soldiers. Hopes she will grant him this same honor today, even as her laughter echoes in the mortar that lands right before his feet. He jumps through the cloud of smoke it creates before him and steps into chaos alone.

Dike is gone. His eyes are open, but they no longer see. He grasps the man’s lapels. Announces that he is taking over, more for the company’s benefit than Dike’s. Rises to his feet soon after and fixates on the one man he knows will have the answers he needs.

“First sergeant Lipton! What have we got?”

He listens intently as Easy’s first sergeant lays out the situation at hand. Nods along as most of the movements and positions he spotted from a distance turn out to be correct. The confirmation of an enemy sniper isn’t good, but Lipton has the man’s position pinned down quite accurately. He can work with that.

“All right,” he confirms. “I want mortars and grenade launchers on that building until it’s gone. When it’s gone, I want First to go straight in.” His gestures emphasize what he needs them to do and what he needs them to stop doing. “Forget about going around. Everybody else”– he grasps Lipton’s shoulder briefly – “follow me.”

He knows Easy would have followed just about anybody aside from Dike. He knows the men will do as they’re told, no matter who sets foot in their camp as a leader. He knows all this, but yet he is heartened by the swift movements of Johnny Martin and the other leaders within the platoons as he steps closer to Foy.

He almost laughs as the building with the sniper in it is blown to pieces. Good old mortar squad. Give them a target and it’s game, set, match.

It’s less fun when _he_ becomes the target for the enemy.

One explosive narrowly misses him. He snarls at the audacity even as his hearing temporarily hits nothing but high notes and muddled sounds. Spots the enemy responsible, hiding out behind the hay themselves.

Hiding won’t save them.

She materializes out of thin air between one enemy and another. They do not even have the time to scream. Her claws are at one man’s throat, ripping and tearing through skin and sinew all the way down to his spine, and her hand is in the other’s chest. He’s seen her kill before, long ago. He didn’t scream then. He doesn’t scream now. He doesn’t stop running. He knows the man’s heart will be in her hands until it is squeezed to dust. Knows there is no hope for the other man, who’s already slumped to the floor with his head lolling too far sideways to be natural.

He takes cover behind a building. Lipton, beside him, almost gets shot. He hisses between his teeth. He can’t afford to lose the man. A glance at Lipton’s face confirms the injury is minor at best. Good.

“What do you see?”

“Armored infantry,” pants Lipton. “A lot of it.”

Damn it.

“Item’s supposed to be on the other side of town.” Don’t let them be dead. Don’t let them be gone. “Do you see any sign of ’em?”

“No.” Lipton glances around the corner of the building once again. “Sir, they’re pulling back. If we don’t connect to I..”

They’ll slip away. He knows it before Lipton says it. He also roughly knows the location for Item, having gone over that part of the plan with a rather fine-toothed comb for Albrighton’s benefit last night.

“Right.” He pats Lipton’s knee in what he hopes is reassurance. “Wait here.”

It seems all he does today is run.

The enemy’s pulling back. They don’t expect him to appear at all. They don’t expect him to be alone.

His boots hit the ground in the same steady pace with which he used to run Currahee. Five miles up. Five miles down. Five miles up. Five miles down. It’s muscle memory that carries him now, as easy as counting one through ten in a classroom.

He runs and the enemy retreats. They run away from him.

He is a lone enemy soldier among their ranks and yet he forces their feet to move away from him.

He is already past the first few soldiers before anyone notices anything amiss.

He is still not being shot at.

He hears confused-sounding German as he runs past a few others.

They start shooting at him then, but his speed is greater than their aim. Were they his men, he would be screaming at them to go all the way back to Toccoa and learn to shoot. He’s not sure how the German captain feels.

He is certain something will hit him at any second. A step to the left could mean getting shot. A step to the right could land him a grenade or worse. Freezing in his tracks is a special form of dying that he will never submit to.

He isn’t sure what’s worse: the fact that he expects to die, or the fact that he stays alive.

“Hey, fellas,” he greets as he slips over the wall behind which part of Item is holed up. He is greeted in turn by Albrighton’s delighted smile and Item’s lieutenant looking like he received a belated Christmas present. “Krauts are pulling back. I need you to start boxing them in. Block their escape, any means necessary. Get a bazooka on that tank if you can.”

“Stop them from flushing down the toilet like the grand old turds they are, got it,” grins Daniels, already gesturing at some of Item’s men to take up residence at one of the main access roads. “Good to see you, sir.”

“You too, Daniels, you too.”

He takes a deep breath. Plunges himself back over the wall and into the fray.

She is on the other side, waiting. Smiling.

She falls into step with him once more. Bare feet hit the ground beside him as he runs. Her hair streams out behind her like a fluttering banner of night. Shadows shift and dance upon her skin before taking their leave and landing between enemy lines. He hears cut-off breaths, jamming guns, failed explosives as soon as the shadows appear in his line of sight.

He keeps running toward safety.

“Hooked up with Item,” he says as soon as he comes face to face with Lipton again. “They’re going to wall them off at the entry points.”

“Sir.” Lipton pauses. His eyes land on her. “The woman?”

He glances over his shoulder. Sees her brilliant smile, the blood on her bare skin, the shadows that dance around her and almost seem to crown her. The air around her appears to vibrate with the anticipation of battle. Her eyes glitter in the pale light. Her gaze on him is steady and nudges him into action once more.

“Are you with me?” he asks her while gesturing at the enemy that seems to have congregated near one of the haystacks. He turns to Lipton, not awaiting her reply. “She and I will take care of half their platoon over there. You work your way to Item, make sure that tank can’t fucking move, and then regroup before taking that central – is that a Shepherd’s church? Yeah, okay, the church.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come then, chosen.” She calls for him in a voice that holds a thousand other voices. Whispers, screams, commands, pleas, sing-songs, and other tones dip and weave out of existence with every word that escapes her lips. “Be with me.”

“Be in me,” he replies as he rises to his feet. He holds out his hand. Invites her close. He echoes her words. “Come then, chosen.”

His heartbeat is one of many the moment her hand touches his. Liquid fire spreads into his veins as she vanishes from sight. The enemy reacts to her disappearance by becoming bolder in their movements, as though whatever spell her presence cast over them is gone now that they no longer see her.

He does so love it when the enemy makes a mistake.

He shoulders his gun. Clicks it back into safety and knows he will not use it again today. His hands find the blades he always keeps close to his chest. Their weight is a familiar one after all these many years of relying on them. They’re the only parts of home he carries with him wherever he goes. His grip on them is assured and almost casual.

His breath forms white clouds in the winter air. He raises his head. Removes his helmet. Smiles.

He witnesses the exact moment they realize she isn’t gone at all.

He moves faster than any human is supposed to. All the shadows in Foy move with him. Bend to him. Cling to him. She is in his lungs, in his veins, in every single beat of his heart and every breath he takes. He knows the enemy’s movements long before they even begin to make them. The blades sing in his hands.

They fall one by one. Screaming. Pleading. Crying. Fall. Fall. Fall.

He does not keep count. He never has. He knows he won’t be able to say if it were five or fifty men he murdered in cold blood, after. All that exists are the blades and the fall. All he breathes is her.

He stands in the middle of a decimated platoon and knows victory is truly theirs.

* * *

“Speirs.”

Colonel Sink pronounces his last name with a great deal more resignation than usual.

“Sir,” he replies. He takes a moment to set his helmet back on his head. Decides to announce the unnecessary, because it doesn’t look like Sink has any idea of what to say to him. “Foy is ours.”

The colonel fixes him with a brief look full of bemusement and trepidation. It isn’t long before the man’s eyes widen and settle on a point somewhere behind him. Ron wonders at it only a moment before his mouth is filled with ash and his lungs recoil from the smoke that thunders down his throat. He rasps out one breath, then another, and feels something wrench free from his chest. The air constricts a moment, then relaxes.

The wind picks up pace around them.

“Ronald.”

The sharp intakes of breath that follow her saying his name tell him a whole story long before he turns to face her. He watches some of Easy’s men physically recoil from the area he stands in, as though he is contaminated by something they do not wish to catch. Others blanch whiter than the snow that besieged them all these many weeks. Nixon, bless him, merely grins broader and more appreciatively than Ron’s ever seen. His eyes dare fix on Lipton only a moment. He looks away before he can register fear or disappointment in the man’s gaze.

God-chosen almost never allow their deities to take possession of them. It is anathema in some circles of society to even consider the option as a valid one. Those who do it too often might stand to lose themselves altogether, no longer knowing where they end and their god begins. It’s this practice that inspired the use of suppressants.

He knows what he risked today.

He sees her, then, and he swears he would do the same thing all over again.

She is luminous. Smiling. Naked but for the drying blood on her skin.

“Hello,” he says, and his lips curve into a rather lopsided smile in turn. His blink is slow. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” She almost sing-songs it into the cold winter air. The sky’s pale blue hues wrap themselves around her body as she walks. He hears the crows caw and squabble in the trees of the Bois-Jacques. Her dark eyes are warmer than they have been since he set foot in Belgium. “Now, go ahead and claim victory.”

“We’re not there yet.”

“You’re out of the woods, aren’t you?” she asks, bloodied hand finding his. “What more is there?”

“What more can you give?”

“To you, Ron?” Her eyes sparkle. Her lips brush his in fleeting companionship. “Everything.”

She has the nerve to wiggle her fingers in a small wave at the rest of the company as though she has known them for years. Her laughter rings out around Foy even as she disappears. He shakes his head fondly, even as the coppery twang of blood lodges itself in his mouth.

He squares his shoulders before he turns back around to face the men.

Ron is used to men judging him. He is used to the fear that flits across their features when they look at him once they have figured his calling out. He is even more used to the cold shoulders, the ignorance, and the isolation that will follow. He has been alone with her for more than twenty years. Not even joining the army has changed that fact any.

He looks at Easy Company.

They look back and never look away.

“Speirs,” says Sink again, and this time the tone is one of distinct reverence. “That was..”

“War,” he says. Meets the gaze of all the men in the company one by one. None of them look away, not even those who might want to. He supposes they’re _his_ company now, unless the brass are more cowardly than he suspects they are. He sighs. Meets Sink’s eyes once more and is surprised to detect glowing approval swirling in their depths. “I am war-chosen.”

“She’s beautiful,” says Nixon, as if that decides everything.

The men murmur acquiescence as though it does.

And perhaps, well, perhaps that’s all there is to it. Sink just nods once and claps him on the shoulder as though he is the kind of person people touch out of their own free will. Dick’s eyes are searching, weighing, deliberating until Nixon’s elbow lands none-too-gently in his side. There is a faint smile at play around Doc Roe’s lips that feels a whole lot like approval.

The world spins on its axis as he locks eyes with Carwood Lipton. He digs his nails into his palm. Bites down on his tongue almost hard enough to draw blood. There is an ocean that awaits him in the man’s eyes. He can almost taste his mother’s cooking on his tongue. If he listens too closely, there will be an old familiar song carried toward him by the wind.

He shakes his head. Looks away.

Easy is full of god-chosen like Lipton. He attributes it to their success, even though the constant push-and-pull energy of the tricksters has died down and Nixon’s eyes have dulled since he saw the man last. They know what it is to have a god’s presence singing itself to life underneath their skin. They are awake, chosen, and ready to win this entire war.

“You’re off your pills, then.” There is a careful breeziness to the tone of the man who’s come to stand beside him. “Do you think by now they will have figured out that those things don’t fucking help? I swear, sir, most of this company improved once their effects wore off.”

“Your guess is as good as mine, sergeant Grant.” He decides he rather likes the way Grant just talks at him as though they have been on friendly terms for years. The lighter-haired Californian seems to take his existence in stride the same way he seems to do most other things. “I must admit, though, I’m glad to see that bazooka nowhere near any of the god-chosen.”

Grant laughs loudly enough to cause some raised eyebrows among his company. Ron pulls a rather battered pack of cigarettes from his pocket in response. Offers the whole pack to the man silently. He ducks his head to hide the smile that threatens to break across his face when Grant not only accepts the pack, but even flicks it open to withdraw two cigarettes from it.

“I’m the only one aside from Welsh that gets to carry this beauty.” Grant pockets the pack of smokes before patting the top of the bazooka rather lovingly. “I always say it’s because we’re the only ones in the company with a lick of common sense, really. Smoke, captain?”

“I’m not a captain,” he says, though he accepts his own cigarette when it’s offered to him. The action seems to cause even more raised eyebrows in their direction. “I will also have you know that the words ‘Welsh’ and ‘common sense’ tend to go well together until one mentions Kitty.”

“We don’t mention her. At all. Ever.” A beat. Then, strong assurance. “You’re my captain now, sir.”

He doesn’t have the heart to disagree.

* * *

**Rachamps, Belgium.**

Lipton’s eyes are burning question marks into him. He catches the man staring at him, though he is sure that the company’s first sergeant is trying very hard to not get caught doing too much of it. It was fine in Noville, when they were fighting their way through the German line and had to find a way to communicate without giving up the whole play in the process. He _expected_ it in Noville and, perhaps, that made all the difference.

Rachamps is nothing like Noville. It feels as though they have been taken off the line, even when he knows there is a new town after this and they’ll be lucky to see any kind of shower in the next two weeks. There’s warmth here, which seeps into his lungs and makes him draw a breath that is not laced with ice.

“You want to ask me, don’t you?”

“Ask you what, sir?”

Lipton is polite, he’ll give the man that. Capable, too.

“If they’re true or not. The stories about me.” He shakes his head. “Did you ever notice.. stories like that.. Everyone says they heard it from someone who was there, but when you ask that person they will say they heard it from someone else who was there.” A faint smile plays around his lips. “I’m quite sure that if you went back a thousand years or so, you’d hear a couple of Roman centurions yakking about how Tercius lopped off the heads of a couple of Carthaginian prisoners.”

“Maybe they kept talking about it because Tercius never denied it.”

He knew there was a reason why he liked Lipton. The man’s astute observation almost knocks the wind out of his lungs.

“Maybe Tercius never denied it because there was some value in being thought of as the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the Roman legion.”

Maybe there is value in being kept at arm’s length and being let loose only when the situation calls for it. He knows most of the stories about him are true, after all, even if he expertly sows a bit of doubt about them in the minds of the men he needs on his side.

“The men don’t care about the stories, sir. They’re just happy to have you as our CO. To have a good leader again.”

“They’ve always had one. I’ve been told there was always one man they could count on. Every day he kept his spirits up. Kept the men focused. Gave them direction.” He lets approval shine through in every word he speaks. “All things a good combat leader does.” He pauses as Lipton’s face remains the picture of confusion. Almost shakes his head. “You have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?”

Lipton shakes his head.

“Hell, it was you,” he smiles, “first sergeant.” He seeks to clarify, now that realization dawns in Lipton’s eyes. “You’ve been the leader of Easy since Winters made battalion. And you won’t be in this position much longer.” He is pleased to be the one to share the news. “Winters put you up for a battlefield commission and Sink had no problems approving that one. Should be official in a few days. Congratulations, lieutenant.”

He nods in genuine approval. Thinks they could have asked for no better outcome than this. Lipton deserves the honor for getting the men this far in one piece. Ron is but a guest in this house, providing some much-needed nourishment and peace of mind where he can, and he does not want to overstay his welcome. He turns on his heel to leave.

“Sir?”

“Yes, lieutenant?”

“I may have a question, sir. It’s nothing to do with all that, mind.” Lipton sounds apprehensive. The gratitude comes as an afterthought. “Thank you, by the way, for the news about the promotion. I appreciate it.”

“Well-deserved, lieutenant, I assure you.” Ron pauses. Clenches his fist, then loosens it again. Apprehension ties knots in his stomach. “What is your question?”

“It’s about your god, sir. If you don’t mind.”

“It’s been a long time since anyone asked me about her.” He turns back to face Lipton. Clamps down on the urge to react like a cornered animal, even when his breath hitches in his chest and his mouth feels like it would sooner snarl than smile. “What do you want to know?”

“How old were you when you met her, sir?”

Something loosens inside him. It is not the type of question he expected, but then again Lipton has never walked familiar paths in his observations. Nixon had warned him about that as early as Toccoa. It’s almost an honor to be subjected to that himself. It makes him want to be honest.

“My own first memory of her?” He closes his eyes for a moment. Opens them again once the memory crystallizes in his head. “I was five. I was screaming bloody murder. Johnny Parker from three doors down had just broken my favorite toy and I wanted revenge.” He smiles at the memory, at the surge of rage that settled in his fists and her casual reassurance at his back. “I whacked him in the head with one of those sandbox shovels. Broke his nose. My mother was absolutely horrified. She, however.. She sounded proud.”

“I bet she did,” says Lipton, in that slow and careful way of his. He sounds as though he mulls the words over right before he expresses himself. “What would you say if I asked you about a first memory of her that’s not your own?”

“I would say..” he begins, and ducks his head as the smile on his face grows wider. Trust Lipton to be perceptive enough to ask. He rambles the next words out in a rush. “I would say that my mother _swears_ I was one day old. She was crouched down next to my crib and talking to me like I understood every word of what she was saying. There was a lot of screaming on my mother’s part. A lot of amusement on hers, too, or so I’ve been told.”

“Chosen from birth.”

He lifts his head at the peace that exudes from Lipton’s words. The smile that greets him is soft and tentative. Lipton’s eyes are warm, dark brown with candlelight flickers dancing in their depths. He takes a breath. Then another. Feels like his heart is thudding in his chest loud enough for the other man to hear.

“A rarity everywhere in the world. Except, it seems, in this company.” He glances around at the men as he speaks. There are flickers of light present in their shadows that he knows are gleaming eyes of tricksters, jackals, masters-of-all-trades, messengers, and ancient things that would taste like home. The formality tumbles off his lips even when the words are intimate. “How old were you, lieutenant Lipton?”

“She was there when I was born, sir,” admits Lipton. “I was in her arms before I was in my mother’s. Nobody panicked about that, though.”

Ron allows himself a soft, almost breathless laugh. Of course the man before him has never known anyone to fear his divine connection. He hears the ocean in every word Lipton speaks. His hands tremble before he clenches them into fists. There is something of home in the man’s very presence and there is salt on his lips in reply to whatever unspoken question lingers between them.

“You never took suppressants, right?” he asks instead, because there’s safety in facts and never in feelings. He smells the flowers from his ex-wife’s garden every time Lipton exhales a breath. “I can’t imagine your god’s presence would need to be diminished.”

“They almost put me on them, sir. Said that it might be difficult for the men to be reminded of home and family every time they saw me. Decided against it when it proved a comfort in certain combat situations.”

“You could’ve been a medic.”

“We have Roe for that. A Fate-chosen makes a stronger companion when saving a life, sir.”

He hears Boston in Lipton’s words. England, too, soon after. If he closes his eyes a moment, he will be carried there.

He keeps his eyes wide open all throughout the night.


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're past the halfway mark in this story and I'm so pleasantly surprised at the warm reception it has gotten so far! Thank you all very much for reading and loving it as much as you do. =) Not much to say about this chapter beforehand, except that there is one scene that refers to my favorite character from The Pacific in such a way that I hope brings honor to him.

* * *

**Haguenau.**

They are still not pulled off the line after Rachamps. It’s a testament to this company that they take the news with the same shrug of the shoulders with which they approach everything else that happens to them. They’re not off the line, even though everyone knows they should be. They’re not fine with it, but they keep going.

His men from Dog Company have assimilated into Fox and mingled with Easy. There are simply too few of them left to be able to justify keeping three separate companies. Philips and Albrighton are gone, injured by enemy fire just after leaving Rachamps. He saw Daniels move up and down the line like a ghost, after, until the man was absorbed into Sink’s small hoard of intelligence officers. He has lost most of his good men.

Ron doesn’t want to lose another.

He knows Donald Malarkey is not doing well. It doesn’t take a brilliant mind to see that the man is merely shuffling his feet through life and not really partaking in it. He has observed Malarkey since Noville, not even wavering when the man’s eyes fixed on him and continued to look right through him. There’s something in the man’s eyes now that reminds him of a jackal’s gaze, which is something only Harry Welsh truly understood when he mentioned it in an officer’s meeting.

He knows Malarkey is newly chosen. He’s one of the few soldiers who can claim so, though Ron doesn’t envy him the work that lies before him. He has had many years in which to grow used to War’s presence. Many years of learning to live with her and even more years coming to terms with his fate. Donald Malarkey will have no such luxury in learning how to work with Balance. It’s sink or swim. Right now, the man seems to be doing neither.

It turns out he’s not the only one who’s concerned about this.

“Tell me you ain’t sendin’ Malarkey out on this patrol, sir!”

A crackle of energy sends shivers down his spine at the sound of Doc Roe’s voice. He allows himself half a smile at the vibrancy of it, even when the words themselves are sharp spikes and demands that twist pricks of needles into his skin. There’s something thunderous lurking inside the formality with which Roe closed the demand.

“Tell me,” he mimics, at first, then settles on something less vicious, “if you think I am as incompetent a fool as your previous commanding officer.”

Roe’s jaw sets into something magnificently stubborn. “It wouldn’t be the first time a commandin’ officer associated with this company did something monumentally stupid,” retorts the medic. “Don’t blame me for checkin’, now.”

“I am not sending Donald Malarkey on any kind of patrol now or in the foreseeable future. I know the man needs time and guidance. Probably some suppressants as well, until he learns to distinguish between his own needs and those of his god. The last thing he needs is to go on a prisoner snatch routine. I would sooner lead a patrol myself and be yelled at by _my_ superior officers about it.”

He needs Roe to understand this. Needs the medic to hear him, even when the man’s eyes are clouded over with a storm that has been brewing since the Bois-Jacques. The air around him is tight, humid, relentless. He coughs. Sinks down into the chair and gestures at the medic to take the couch.

“What do you suggest, then?” The medic doesn’t back away, not exactly, but he does sink down on the couch rather gingerly. “I know we don’t have that many men left. The new lieutenant is.. new.” Doc Roe’s cheeks flush momentarily at giving such an inadequate description. “Malark is the logical choice, but not the smart one. And he needs more help than I can give. Can get him started on suppressants for now, but not much else.”

“Lipton suggested Johnny Martin for the patrol. I suppose the new lieutenant could go along to learn active combat. Apparently, they don’t put them in that at West Point.”

“Good, that’s good.” Roe nods decisively. Offers a small smile at the dig Ron just leveled at officers who didn’t rise through the ranks. His eyes still have a storm locked in their depths. “Dike never listened to anything Lip had to say. I’m glad you’re different, sir.”

“You need to talk with Welsh about Malarkey. I don’t think it will solve everything, but it’ll be a start until we’re off the line. Welsh knows a thing or two about Balance and being chosen by that particular god.”

“Kitty?”

“Kitty,” he confirms. He isn’t surprised that Roe knows about her. Welsh’s fiancee is beautiful, god-chosen, and rumored to be terrifying in her own right. Harry has yet to shut up about her. “He might even write to her and get her opinion on what to do with Malarkey, hm?”

“I suppose that could work.” The medic deflates at last. Ron coughs his lungs clear of the humid, unforgiving air. He feels as though the strings of his own fate have come loose from Roe’s tight grasp as the man’s voice levels out and steadies. “Now, you said somethin’ about Lip needin’ medical? Do I need to take a look at you, too?”

“I’m fine. Lipton’s the one who’s burning up.”

Roe stares him down, utterly unimpressed. “You’re coughin’. Sir.”

“I’m sure that has nothing to do with you, Doc.”

“You were coughin’ on the way to Haguenau, too.”

He ignores the observation best he can.

“Lipton’s in the back. I know it’s pneumonia, but.. he’s in a bad way. I need you to tell me if he needs to be pulled from the line.” He rakes his hand through his hair and sighs. He can’t afford to lose Lipton, not now that he’s still trying to get used to the men and learning their strengths as well as their weaknesses. He’s afraid he might not have a choice. “Or, at least, tell me what to do.”

“I will, sir.”

* * *

It doesn’t occur to him that Doc Roe is one sneaky little bastard until he cradles a cup of hot tea while a pile of blankets covers his legs.

Granted, most of the blankets are for Lipton’s benefit. The man is a collapsed heap of misery right beside him, shivering even in the relative warmth of the bed, and his breathing is far too labored for Ron’s tastes. He wakes and slumbers in equal measure. Doc Roe’s eyes darkened too much at the sight. The medic’s hands twisted as if weaving more threads into an invisible tapestry. Ron is not one for fear, never, but Roe’s stormy countenance almost has him quote Macbeth.

_When the battle is lost and won.._

He sighs. Rests his head against the headboard. He has been coming down with a minor cold himself, which he believes to be the entire reason why Roe wrangled him into staying with Lipton. His throat certainly has residual sandpaper lodged inside it. The tea helps, if only a moment, but it doesn’t make him feel better.

“Hey, Ron.”

“Dick,” he greets. Winters’s voice is soft. His presence in the doorway almost unobtrusive. He raises his cup of tea in mock-salute. “I’d get up, but your medic is more terrifying than anyone I have ever met.”

“How’re you feeling?”

“Weak as a newborn kitten.” He smirks as he uses one of Harry’s old descriptions for feeling sick. It’s not as good as his old favorite _wobbly as an angry goose_ , but it still serves to relax Dick’s worried features somewhat. “It’s Lipton who’s the real concern here. Doc’s threatening to pull him off the line if he doesn’t improve by morning.”

“Probably for the best.”

He makes a non-committal sound in the back of his throat.

“The patrol, Ron?”

“Martin will lead. West Point is welcome to tag along if he likes.” He coughs. Breathes out a soft curse at the tightness in his chest. “I gave Luz the full roster. He’s in the other room doing inventory.”

“I do wish Lew and you wouldn’t call our new lieutenant that.”

He fixes Dick with a level stare. “I could call him a dozen worse things. The kid’s too eager.” He coughs again. Grimaces as the hot tea drips onto his hands with the jostling movement he makes. “It’s just the one patrol, yes?”

“So far.”

“I will rip their faces off if they try to make this company go on another.” He blinks up at Dick. Coughs once more for good measure. “These men have been through enough.”

Dick smiles one of his more enigmatic smiles in response.

Well. Shit.

“Does Nix know what you’re up to?” His question is wary. If Nixon has no idea, then they’re probably well and truly fucked. “Do I need to go ask him?”

“Stay in bed, Ron.”

“Fuck you.”

“Stay with Carwood,” laughs Dick, unfazed by the minor vitriol Ron managed to summon between coughs. “Lew and I can handle the patrol. He needs you right now.”

He can’t very well argue with that when the man in question moves until his burning skin meets Ron’s touch. He frowns down at Lipton’s arm that now rests against his own. He sets the cup of tea aside and brushes his hand against the man’s forehead.

“Dick..”

“Stay. Ron. Just stay.”

He is not very good at dealing with sick people. He rarely gets sick himself, unlike some of the men in his company. Conley in particular has the constitution of a small and rather sickly dog, while Albrighton was damn near useless in open field for a while due to an allergies streak he’d casually forgotten to mention. He doesn’t even want to revisit the time half of Dog got ill from the godawful food that had been served at his wedding.

He almost argues the point with Dick, but the man has vanished from sight again as quickly as he came. Carwood Lipton is in no shape to be alone. He’s pretty damn certain that Roe threatened Luz and just about anyone else in the vicinity to keep him in this house, too.

Ron resigns himself to the bed.

* * *

It’s dark when he wakes.

The room feels hot. Stifling. His hair is wet, as is his shirt. A thin layer of sweat rests on his skin. He frowns as he rasps out a shaky breath. Isn’t pleased to find that his nose seems to have taken offense to the warmth and is now running its very own revolt against him.

“Lipton?” he asks, then, because the rattling breaths beside him do not sound good at all. He keeps his voice soft. Tries the man’s given name for the first time. “Carwood?”

“Sir.”

Lipton’s croak is miserable. He turns over on his side to face the man. In the pale light of the moon, Lipton looks almost as translucent as a ghost. His eyes glitter with fever.

“Hey,” he breathes, so gentle that not even a baby deer could be startled by his voice, “how are you feeling?”

“Pain. Warm.” Lipton looks vaguely apologetic about it. “Hurts.”

His knuckles brush Lipton’s hand. His fingers come to rest on the inside of the man’s wrist. He seeks out the lieutenant’s heartbeat, slow and mercifully still steady, and wraps his fingers around it as tightly as he dares.

“Do you need anything?”

“Water?” Lipton’s cough rattles through his whole body. “Sir, you should.. the bed. Yours.” Another cough, deep and unsettling. “You’re captain.”

“You’re sick,” replies Ron. He hopes he made the words firm enough to dissuade Lipton from the absurd notion that, somehow, the bed should be his because he is miraculously higher in rank than the kind and competent man beside him. He says the words like they should settle everything. “I have water right here. Roe said you should warm it in your mouth before swallowing it down, though.”

He sits up and checks his watch before he grabs the glass of water off the makeshift bedside table. It’s half past three in the morning. Roe had come in around two, earlier, to hand him Eugene Jackson’s dog tags and check on Lipton. Another successful patrol. Another casualty. He doesn’t know how much more the men around him will be able to stand.

His hand curls around Lipton’s head and lifts the man off the pillow. His fingers tangle in the man’s hair. He wraps them around the longest strands and places the glass of water against Lipton’s lips. Tips it back slow, just like Roe had ordered. He’ll never be fool enough to counter his medic on anything. Dick had smiled knowingly when he’d said, following his own promotion, that Doc Roe was the actual man in charge of the company.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Ron,” he replies absently, putting the glass back and releasing Lipton back onto the pillow. “My name is Ron.”

“First name terms, huh?” Lipton’s voice is hoarse, but faintly amused. A smile crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Not one for formality, are you?”

“We’re fighting a war. I believe most of the formalities can wait until we’re tangled back up in our everyday lives.” He smiles, too, and settles back onto his own pillow. “I would invite the rest of the company to call me Ron, too, but I think that they might wonder if it is a ploy to murder.”

Lipton lets out a breathy laugh that turns into a hacking mess of a cough. He wraps his arm around the man’s frame as the cough endures. Tentatively rubs the man’s shoulder blades and upper back until the worst of it passes. The heat of Lipton’s body burns clean through the man’s shirt.

“Thank you.”

“Sure.”

“Would not have expected you to be”– another cough –“any good at this.”

“I’m not,” he grins, “but it’s nice that you disagree. My ex-wife used to say I was horrid at taking care of anyone.”

“That’s probably why she’s your ex–”

His brow furrows as Lipton’s coughs deteriorate rapidly. The man rasps out breaths in a near-panicked breathing pattern that even Ron’s slow pats on his back cannot calm down. It’s this that makes Ron shoot upright.

It’s this movement that makes him meet the eyes of Lipton’s god.

Her hands are raised. Her presence fades in and out of the lamp light, but he can see her in that hazy in-between with a rather practiced eye. She stands at the edge of the bed. There is lavender in the air that reminds him of his ex-wife’s cottage garden. His newborn son probably has twigs of it braided into the wicker that surrounds his small body at night.

Ron shakes his head as if to clear it from an impending fog.

“I am sorry, War-chosen,” says Lipton’s god, and her voice sounds exactly like his mother’s used to before her illness wrecked her voice and presence. He wrinkles his nose in distaste. “I thought you would like to know your child is safe, with all the stolen gifts you keep sending his way.”

“Or I could just find that out from a letter,” he nearly snarls, “you know, like any other regular human being?” The _entitlement_ of some deities is almost too much to bear. He’s not beholden to Lipton’s god. He pauses. Locks his jaw into something stubborn and unyielding. “It’s not stealing if the people in question leave these things behind for anyone to find.”

“Find, but not keep.”

“Lady,” he says, patience thin and worry for Carwood even bigger than before, “it’s finder’s keepers. Don’t fret about it when you’ve got far bigger problems than that.”

“You have no regard for your family, do you?” Her expression is scathing. “You’ve made your home in your god, in this battle, and there is no turning you away from it.” She shakes her head. Her tone brooks no argument. “I need you to move, War-chosen. Your particular brand of care is no longer needed in this chamber.”

He shakes his head as he rises from the bed. Carwood’s hand clutches his and squeezes down in what could be a ‘thank you’ as he goes. He’s not surprised to find that the man’s god is built of steel traps underneath that exterior of home. That’s all Boston has ever been for him. Disappointment and remnants of love wrapped up in silver candlesticks, linen tablecloths, and the looming absence of a night light.

“Be well, Carwood,” he says, even as the man’s god kneels on the bed and wraps herself around the man’s shivering form. He hugs himself as the sickly sweet smell of pomegranates and wisteria permeates the room. Levels a glare at the god who reminds him of everything he willingly left behind. “Take good care of him.”

The _or else_ lingers in the quiet even as he takes his leave.

* * *

The brass wants another patrol the next evening. Dick and Nixon firmly disagreed with it before Ron could even make good on his promise to hurt the person who suggested it. His men are not moving out again. They’re off the line tomorrow.

It’s the first scrap of good news he has had in a long time.

The sky over Haguenau is darkening at a too-rapid pace. There are too many crows in the trees and on the rooftops, shrieking and crying out some dissent even he cannot hope to decipher. He watches some of the men shiver as the woodlands, further away from town, come alive with intermittent howls. The coming night somehow seems more terrifying than the last patrol. He is glad his men are not moving out anymore, not when they grow skittish and appear almost haunted by the sounds that weave into the air over the town.

Chuck Grant is the only one who doesn’t give him a wide berth. Instead, the man sidles up to him for a shared cigarette and a complaint about one of the crows whose idea of a good time seems to focus on hitching a ride upon the sergeant’s shoulder. He laughs at the sight before shooing her bird away. Grant’s laugh at the bird’s indignant squawk does more to chase the cold in his body away than any fire Ron has built for himself lately.

Ron sets out in search of his god when the sky overhead seems to crackle with warning. Her presence in the town is stifling, almost to the point of overwhelming. He’s not certain if it is because Lipton’s god manifested so clearly, or if it is because Malarkey and Welsh have been experimenting, or if it is because of something else entirely. Even he, after all these many years of knowing her, feels a sickening swoop in his stomach at the noise and the dark that threatens to claim the town.

She is waiting for him on the staircase when he returns to the building he already looted empty this morning. She looks small upon it, as though she has somehow crumbled between last night and now. There are tear tracks on her cheeks. Her voice shakes.

“H-how’s Carwood?”

“Alive. Recovering.” He heaves a sigh. Feels all his previous relief about the lack of patrol tonight dissipate the longer he looks at her. “Doc’s still not sure how he went from almost dying to being relatively fine in the span of a few hours.”

“His god.” She smiles a too brittle and far too fleeting smile. Amends her statement, unwilling to give credit to a deity other than herself. “Doc Roe.”

“Both,” he laughs. He can recognize the good Lipton’s god did, even if he doesn’t care for her presence any. He sits down beside his own god and watches her hands twist in her lap. Her fingers leave bright specks of red and yellow streaking across her dark coat. He sobers up the longer he looks at her. Issues a statement he knows to be true. “You’re hurting.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t –” he starts, then amends. _I didn’t think you_ could _get hurt_ , he thinks all the same. Out loud, he tries something else. “I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”

“I lost a man today.” Her voice wavers on the notes of loss. She sounds almost surprised at the pain inside them. “Not you, Ronald, never you. But him. I lost him.” The words are as close to a wail of anguish as he’s ever heard. Outside, the crows shriek their dissent. Her hands twist powerlessly in her lap. “I lost my John.”

“One like me?” he asks, because of course he is not the only one chosen when the whole world falls to its knees before her. He thinks he would have liked to meet the lost man, if only to ask how the other man coped with seeing a god’s weaknesses. “One who would follow you to the end of the world? This John, was he like me?”

“Yes.” Her dark eyes are wet. Her cry is twisted, ugly, hurt. The noise outside is just as mangled, just as broken as she. “They made him leave me, once. He almost begged them to let him come back. He.. He made others want to fight. He made them survive. So many are alive because of him.” The smile that twists her mouth is grotesque and terrible. He can’t look away from the tear that gleams almost red on her cheek. “I loved him, Ronald, and I doomed him. I couldn’t save him. I can’t save all of you.”

The air constricts around him. Winds itself around his waist, loops itself around his neck, ties itself into knots all around his body as if it fears him leaving. The crows outside are shrieking her grief into the world. An ugly feeling claws its way into his chest at the sound. He no longer wonders at the dark that threatens to claim this town. In here, on these stairs, she puts her head into her hands and weeps.

He pulls her close before he can think twice about it. Wraps his arms around her as tightly as he dares. She’s small in his embrace. Smaller still when she curls up against him and folds her hands around his dog tags. He makes hushing noises at her the way she used to when the world seemed like it was falling apart all around him. He clings to her best he can. Wraps himself even tighter around her when she shudders out a gasp and muffles her anguish in his arms.

_I’m still here,_ he tells her wordlessly, kissing the top of her head, _I am alive and with you._

“From the sound of it,” he says after a moment, keeping his voice soft and his eyes softer still as she tilts her head to look at him, “he loved you very much too. He came back to you. That is a choice, just like you chose us.” He holds up a hand when she makes a harsh noise of protest against him. “It _is_ a choice. He could have walked away and led a life away from the fight. I could have asked for new suppressants and gone back to Boston. He didn’t. _I_ didn’t. A choice.”

“I chose him during the war, you know,” she says. Her hands brush her cheeks almost angrily. They swipe at her tears as if she means to slap them away from her face. “He was doing something so brave, something so stupidly brave..” She laughs a sharp laugh, joyless and jagged around the edges. “I don’t even know how I kept him alive that night, because he was sure as shit trying his hardest to die. He was _magnificent_ , Ron. I saw him and I just.. wanted.”

He hums. “No shame in wanting.” A pause. He snorts out a laugh. Decides to go for irreverent and indecent. “Hell, in all these years since that birthday of mine, I’ve never stopped wanting you.”

“Shut up.” Her shoulder nudges his none too gently. He almost topples off the stairs when she puts more force behind her next nudge. “Don’t make me regret choosing you.”

_Do you ever?_ He wants to ask, wants to know, but the words won’t meet his tongue. _Do you regret me, War, or am I still the right choice? Would you weep for me, if you lost me this way?_

“Boston’s going to have to wait,” he says out loud. It seems like something that changes the whole conversation, even though he doesn’t intend for it to be so. He doesn’t know a damn thing about this John, not like she did, but the man was chosen by her and is now dead through her. He stupidly wishes to honor that love he knows so well, to ensure that whatever sacrifice the man made will continue to count toward peace. He knows only one way to do just that. “We still have to kill Hitler.”

“I thought this new company of yours said all they wanted was to steal his mustache? Or did I mishear?”

He shoots her a look of appropriate dismay. “I’ll scare that idea out of them.”

“You’d better.”

Her smile is fleeting, but her eyes are no longer black with grief. He counts it as a win even when it feels like this world isn’t getting any better with them in it.

He kisses her and tries to forget that it feels like he shouldn’t be in this world at all.


	8. VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter begins with a scene I always knew would be a part of this fic. We find ourselves in Landsberg, but this scene opens in the aftermath of what we see in episode 9 of the show. It's a deliberate decision on my end to acknowledge these horrors without showing them outright, which I hope is a choice that will resonate with you as readers as well. 
> 
> Another scene in this chapter is very much the instigator of why we have a Ron/Chuck-deal going on in the tags of this fic. This ship was a surprise to me while writing, at first, but quickly grew into something tangible and monumental as we move ever-closer toward peace..

* * *

**Landsberg, Germany.**

Ron carries himself across the threshold of his room in a place he wants to scrub from memory forever. He would just as soon raze this house, this town, these woods to the ground than spend another day like this.

She is waiting for him. Here, in his bed, in a town he hates more than he could ever hope to hate her.

He looks at her for a long time. Takes in her dark hair, messy as though a thousand birds tangled in it and created a nest of their choosing. Watches the slow blink of her dark eyes, the stubborn set of her lips, the map of scars that litters her skin. The room’s shadows play a merry dance across her slender frame. Some of them stretch out behind her and paint the bed’s headboard with faint outlines of wings.

“I hate you sometimes.”

He does not mean to say it out loud. Doesn’t mean to have it sound so wary, either, but this is the longest day of his life by far and he is tired in a way that screams.

“I know,” she says, then, and she sounds tired too. “I know, honey.”

He sinks onto the edge of the bed as the term of endearment leaves her lips. Puts his head in his hands and thinks he lost himself somewhere between Boston and here. Doesn’t know how to get that back, not even now that she’s calling him the same thing she called him when he was sixteen and crying. He lets out a shuddering breath. His eyes are wet now, too.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she murmurs. Her lips brush the place where his shoulders meet. Her arms encircle his waist. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.”

He doesn’t think he can take too much kindness. Not tonight. Not after..

He takes a shuddering breath. Then another. Tries to forget all the ways in which this world can burn, but his clothes are full of ash and his lungs will never again be clear of smoke.

War presses against his back and yields to him.

“Okay.”

He doesn’t want to accept surrender.

“I hate you sometimes,” he says, again, and squeezes her wrists so tight he hopes he will mark _her_ for once. “I really do.”

_I hate you when the world goes quiet and I am waiting, waiting, waiting for something that might never come. I hate you when the world explodes and I feel at peace. I hate you when I write letters home to families that don’t yet know you ripped them apart. I hate you when I get shot and choose to laugh about it. I hate you when you drag me from the water, but more when you leave me in the cold hard earth. I hate you when I see the worst of you. I hate you more when I love you in spite of everything else._

“I hate you so much.” His cheeks burn and his breath shudders around the words. He swallows the bile that threatens to work its way up through his throat again. “Why did you choose me? Why am I witness to all of this?”

“I love you. You’re strong enough to bear it.”

“That’s not truth. That’s just another fucking weapon.”

“Truth and weapons are the same things, honey. You know that.” Her voice is silk, but her words cut deeper than any blade he knows. He aches with it. Feels their sting as though they are sharp steel carving out his rib cage. “Do you want to be like a non-chosen?”

“I wouldn’t know the first damn thing about what that would even feel like.” He extricates himself from her grasp. Rises to his feet. His voice trembles and shakes with every word. “I don’t even remember a time you weren’t in my life somehow. I don’t know who the fuck I _am_ without you. Sometimes, sometimes I think they’ll invent a suppressant one day that will make you disappear altogether and I will have no fucking clue who is staring back at me in the mirror when that happens.”

“You’ll see the same as now.”

“How can I? How, when all I see is _you_?”

He slams his fist down on the dresser. Locks the door as an afterthought, though he is quite sure nobody will disturb them tonight. He’s out of breath. Smoke curls into his lungs. Relentless, unforgiving, choking. He coughs once. Twice.

“Ron.”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

He snorts at that request. “Make me. You’re good at that, right?” He removes his belt. Places it on the dresser. Unhooks the knives and the additional ammo from his body. Drops them on the chair next to the door. His laugh is bitter. His voice is hoarse. “Everything I do is for you anyway. What difference does my free will make? Just take me, make me, reshape me into whatever kind of weapon this world needs.”

“No. That is _not_ the way this goes.” Her voice bites. Claws. Doesn’t quite turn into a shriek, but it sends a shiver down his spine all the same. “I chose you because there is a fire in you that never dies out. I chose you because you never take the easy road. I chose you because you will always fight for what you believe has value in this world.”

“How can you say that? How can you sit there and say you chose me for those reasons? I was a _baby_ when you chose me!”

“No, you weren’t.”

He staggers backward at the confession. She smiles, then, enigmatic and beautiful. He wants to put his gun to her head and pull the trigger. His breath shudders out of him as the night twists around him and takes up residence in her. He blinks. Takes a few steps closer to the bed when it doesn’t appear as if she is going to explain herself without prompting.

“I expressed interest in your potential when you were young.” Her words weave a careful pattern into the air that feels too stifling to him by far. “To most humans, that’s the same as being chosen. They react accordingly, with their pills and their monitoring. They don’t realize that being chosen means nothing as long as the chosen does not voluntarily agree to serve.” The wave of her hand is dismissive and all-too-casual. Her laugh turns almost self-deprecating. “I know I’m a lot to take, Ron. I know. I’m too much for a child to bear. I would _never_ have demanded full service of you then. Not the way I do now.” She shakes her head. “You were an angry child, a lost one, and I admit to fostering a little of that here and there. But I never, never claimed you fully in those days.”

“I always thought that you went away because of the suppressants. Not that you were sparing me from anything.” He rubs his eyes. Firmly fixes his gaze on the nightstand’s lamp. The light goes blurry. His eyes are wet again. He hates himself. “When did you choose me? When was I claimed, fully?”

“I know you remember your eighteenth birthday.”

On the threshold of the rest of his life, he had asked for her. He had begged her to come. When she did, finally, in those hours when he couldn’t decide whether to put his fist through the wall or drink a bottle dry, he had all but fallen to his knees for her. He remembers that birthday more than he remembers all the others.

“Yes. Is that when?”

She moves off the bed faster than his eyes can see. The shadows in the room move with her. Her hand finds his before he has the chance to blink. It’s confirmation enough, but still she speaks.

“You were on the verge of enlistment. You asked for me. Stopped taking your pills just so you could have a moment with me. You wanted me.”

“I asked if I could get to know you, so I would not be afraid.” He ducks his head. Mumbles out the next words. “I wanted you more than anything.”

“How could I refuse you, then?” There’s something entirely _other_ in her question. It tempts and teases, lilts the same song around him that he first heard on that birthday years ago, coaxes and pleads in a way that’s never quite begging but feels like she’s kneeling for him all the same. “You wanted me. I wanted you. There was a choice and we made it that night.” It sounds so simple. He knows it isn’t. “Do you wish you didn’t know me, Ron?”

His answer is instantaneous.

“Yes.”

He thinks he’ll never sleep again. A part of him will always be here. He stands within another person’s house in a land that will never feel like home. There is ash stuck in his lungs that will forever remind him of how easily lives can be burned away. He collects trinkets of other people's lives and uses them as stopgaps for his absence in all the families he’s created and lost. He wants no part of any of it. He can’t walk away.

He swallows.

“No,” he corrects then. There is nothing gentle about it. He wants to wrap his hands around her throat and squeeze. He wants to kiss her until she’s as battered and bruised as him. He wants, he wants, he _wants_. “I hate you. I love you.” He laughs, distorted and broken. “Will you still have me like this?”

“Always,” she says, and he’s not sure if it’s threat or promise. He remains unsure even when her lips brush his and her fingers dig into his arms as though she wants to claw her way into his bloodstream. “Will you have me like this, too?”

If he were another man, he would refuse. If he were another man, he might listen to words of caution about humans who lay with gods. If he were another man, he would die a thousand deaths before saying yes to life with her.

He lives just this once.

His hands grasp her face and hair as though he wishes her to shatter beneath his fingertips. He chases after her lips the way he chases after danger, all reckless abandon and not a thought for his own safety, and will later never recall whose teeth found the other first. She’s under his skin and beneath his body, thrown back onto the bed and wrapped around him so tight he can’t tell the difference between what’s her and what’s him anymore. Her hands claw into the bed’s covers, cling to the parts of his uniform he barely ever discards, brush past his dog tags, tangle in his hair.

_Yes, I’ll have you,_ he breathes against her skin, feeling her smile turn wild against his throat. _I will follow you into the dark._

Her touch feels like absolution.

* * *

Night greets him when he steps outside.

He sighs and attempts to close his jacket with one hand. Smokes and a lighter are in his other hand, acting as a lifeline against the sight before him. His most hated German town stares back at him. Quiet this time, with barely any noises ringing out from the houses that surround his own. It seems the men have no use for speaking with each other tonight or playing any games to pass the time. Most of them wandered to their billets straight after arriving back in Landsberg. He didn’t have the heart to command them otherwise.

He will not return to bed tonight. He’s left her stretched out atop his sheets, dark hair obscuring the whites of his pillows, as though she has more rights to claim the bed than he. Gods never sleep, or so he was told, but her murmur had sounded rather muddled before her face relaxed into a smile. He left her with nothing but a short kiss against her brow, as if that was enough to encompass all his feelings about her.

Perhaps it was enough, and he is merely thinking about it to stop himself from contemplating anything else.

Ron sighs. If it were just him alone, he would leave tonight. Morning be damned, he’d leave this place right now and never look back. There’s a case to be made for insubordination. He’s just not sure Colonel Sink would court martial anyone for getting the hell out of Landsberg. The man had rather looked like he wanted to do nothing more than leave himself.

The sergeant sitting on the steps in front of him may do a better job at stopping Ron than the threat of court martial ever will. The soldier startles a little at the sound of the door shutting behind Ron. He almost apologizes for it, but then the man’s shoulders settle into an easier line and the words die on his tongue.

He isn’t surprised to find Chuck Grant on what can be considered as his doorstep. Decides to take it in stride when Grant half-turns and nods at him in acknowledgment.

“Sir.”

“Grant,” he nods.

He lights a cigarette. Offers it. The man’s fingers brush up against his own before taking it, as though Ron is not the sort of man to avoid touching. They’ve been sharing packs of smokes between them since Foy. Grant always seems to carry a flicker of light with him and Ron has hoarded too many cigarettes to give a damn about sharing them at this point. He has seen the looks of concern pass between Easy’s men at their continued cigarette sharing, undeterred as they are by lieutenant Lipton’s gentle admonishment about not believing everything you hear. He has offered sergeant Grant numerous escape routes since, as if this would somehow stop the man from getting closer to him. He’s quietly pleased to find that rumors and truths both do nothing to keep Grant away.

Ron firmly believes Chuck Grant has never been scared of anyone.

“Rough day, huh?”

He grunts his assent as he lights a second cigarette. “Tomorrow won’t be any kinder,” he warns. There are orders to escort the townsfolk to the camp. _Clean-up duty,_ the brass calls it. He scoffs at that description under his breath. “We’ll be out of here soon enough, though.”

“On to the next horror.” Grant’s mouth twists into pursed disapproval. “Word of mouth is that those.. those _things_.. They’re all over Germany? Some say Poland, too.” The man’s eyes are almost silver in the moonlight as they fix on him. He looks haunted. “I just.. don’t get it. I don’t get why anyone would do that to another person. I really just fucking don’t, sir.”

“That makes two of us.” He sits down on the steps across from the man. Leans his back against the banister and stretches his legs out next to Grant’s. Exhales the smoke slowly from his lungs. “I used to think I was aware of how deep man’s cruelty could reach. Used to have a good idea of the kind of thing we’re capable of doing to each other.” He shakes his head. “Today? Today I learned that I know absolutely nothing of the world we live in at all.”

“I wouldn’t say nothing, sir, not with who chose you and all that,” smiles Grant as he taps some ash off his cigarette. There is a vague hint of hesitance in his voice as he leans back against the other banister. His eyes flicker toward the upstairs window. “Did, uh, did she say anything? About all this?”

“Nothing that could possibly make me understand.” He rakes his hand through his hair. Sighs. The scent of gunpowder lingers on his skin. Deeper is the scent of ash, not yet washed away by her mouth. “I’m not sure any answer could ever satisfy me, either. I don’t want to understand this.” He shakes his head. “I just want to condemn it. Make sure it never happens to anyone else again. I want to find those responsible.”

“I want to hurt them.” The admission is soft. The sentiment is anything but. Grant lets out a nervous-sounding laugh as the words hang in the air between them. “I’ve never wanted to before. I’ve never..”

“Never wanted to be the reason why grown men have nightmares?” He keeps his tone wry. Lets the moonlight flood his eyes as he tilts his head upward. He is careful to let his smile reach the light, too. “I want to hurt them, too, and then I want them dead. She has promised me a merry hunt.” He extends his hand toward Grant. “I will not ask you to join me. I will merely make you a promise in turn.”

“Sir?” The man’s face is the picture of confusion. The man’s body, however, reacts to the invitation almost instantly. Chuck Grant’s left hand is far cooler to the touch than his own. “I’m not god-chosen. You don’t need to promise me anything.”

“Yes, I do. I promise you my hunt will not leave me empty-handed. I promise you my hunt will bring many gifts to death. I promise you my hunt will give you peace.”

“Captain.”

There is a weight in his title that has never been there before. It’s just the one word, nothing more, as Chuck’s fingers interlace with his briefly and squeeze assent into his skin. The gesture sends long-forgotten tingles up and down Ron’s spine. There is no tremor in the man’s hand. No fear at all. He nods decisively. Three promises, as he was taught long ago, also signify a choice.

He releases the man’s hand a little too late for it to be casual.

“Go get some rest, Grant.”

“You too, sir.” The soldier flashes him a quick smile. There is a lilt in his voice that teases out the next words. “Sleeping alone should do it.”

“You don’t say.”

“I have it on good authority, sir, that kicking a god out of bed is not going to condemn you to an eternity of misery.”

“ _Chuck_.”

“ _Sir_.”

They stare at each other. He almost smiles at the bravery.

“I will make it an order if I have to,” he says, eventually, because he doesn’t know how else to deal with Chuck Grant. He shakes his head. “Please get some sleep.”

“Yes, sir.” Moonlit eyes meet his own calmly. A smile lingers at the corners of the man’s mouth. “But only because you said _please_.”

* * *

**Berchtesgaden, Germany.**

“So, Hitler and Hitler and Hitler..”

“Three Hitlers and counting?”

“Wait. We can’t have three Hitlers.”

“Please don’t make me witness the birth of another one of your conspiracy theories,” remarks Ron sourly. He hasn’t forgotten about the last time Nixon got something impossible into his head. “The joke starts with Hitler, and then?”

“Does it start with him, or is Hitler the joke in question?”

“Carwood,” drawls Ron, raising his drink at his lieutenant, “I always knew you were the smartest of us all.”

Lipton’s cheeks flush a moment at the compliment. He’s better at taking them now than he used to be, but random nice words directed at him do still tend to fluster the man. Ron smirks and sips at the champagne Nixon had all but shoved at him the second he walked out onto the balcony of the Eagle’s Nest.

“Hitler, Himmler, and the other fella walk into a bar.”

“Which other fella?” demands Welsh, already on his fifth beer and second gin of the day. “I mean, none of them look like they would have a clue on what the inside of a bar is like. Fun-suckers, the lot of them.”

“Goering. Goering got us this alcohol.” Nixon gestures at the many bottles that surround them. “Goering was probably the other fella.”

“The bar?” reminds Lipton, eyes already sparkling with mirth.

“Okay, so, they’re in a bar.”

“We got _that_ part down already,” snorts Ron, shaking his head. “What happened next?”

“I don’t know,” mutters Nixon. He blinks in utter confusion. “I wasn’t there.”

Ron doesn’t know who starts giggling first, Carwood or Harry, but it isn’t long before he is wiping stray tears out of the corners of his eyes either. He laughs until his stomach hurts and the fizzing sensation of the champagne threatens to bubble back up into his throat. He’s drunker than he’s ever been. He’s happier than he’s ever been.

“We made it and they didn’t,” remarks Harry, sloshing his third glass of gin everywhere but into his mouth, “so it doesn’t matter what the hell they got up to in that bar. We got their alcohol and their homes and their silverware.”

“And their nasty flags, their scratchy uniforms, their Lugers”– Nixon attempts and fails to keep count on his fingers, until he finally waves his hand in dismissal –“and a bunch of other rot we should ritually burn.”

“Bonfire.” Lipton is the one to coin the term. His eyes shine suspiciously bright. “We could build one out there.”

“Just set Goering’s house aflame.” Ron is nodding as he collects the champagne bottles and sets them on the balcony’s railing. “Alternately, just chuck it all over the edge here.”

“You gonna shoot those?”

Ron eyes the bottles. Deliberates. “You _wanna_ see me shoot those, Harry?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” mutters Carwood.

“That might be the first time you’ve said fuck out loud in this entire war, Lip,” roars Nixon loudly, grin almost broader than his face.

“We’re not at war anymore,” interrupts Dick’s voice from the doorway, “so technically he said fuck in peace-time.”

The four men blink at the new arrival. Nixon’s mouth works soundlessly. Carwood’s eyebrows are raised all the way to his hairline. Harry lets out another giggle and knocks over two bottles in his rush to embrace Dick.

“You just said fuck, sir,” Ron says blankly.

Dick pats Harry’s back. Smiles. “So I did.”

“How sure are we that the world didn’t just.. end?”

Ron smiles at Nixon in the most conspiratorial way he can manage. “We didn’t start the fire, Lewis,” he says, fully aware that the world will only end on Lewis Nixon’s or his own say-so. “I’m pretty sure all we did was win a war.”

“Hooray for us?”

“Hip hip!”

“Don’t do the hip-part, Lip,” moans Harry, “it’s my least favorite.”

“Harry,” says Ron, “just focus on the bottles.”

“You gonna shoot them now?”

“With permission only.” Ron almost tips over as he flourishes the most unbecoming bow of all time at Dick Winters. “What say you, Major?”

“Have at ’em, captain!”

Their laughter streams out into the night louder than any gunshots.


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For additional fun times, please accept [this Webgott-drabble of mine](https://basilone.tumblr.com/post/626086668888424448/hello-could-i-possibly-get-22-a-kiss-that-is) as taking place somewhere between the first and second scene of this chapter. 
> 
> Fair warning: the rest of this is probably going to hurt.

* * *

**Zell am See, Austria.**

“I know you said yesterday that I’d wind up with patrol duty sooner or later, but _tonight_? Really?”

“Hello to you too, sergeant,” smiles Ron. He glances up to find Chuck Grant glaring down at him. “Tonight’s patrol wasn’t my idea. As it turns out, our Fox Company remnants still have _no_ idea how to read a map and they left two of the posts unmanned last night because of it.” He heaves a sigh. Leans back against the stair banister. “Colonel Sink was furious. How in the hell any soldier of Fox made it this far at all is anybody’s guess.”

“So?” The man huffs out an indignant-sounding breath. Drops down onto the step above Ron. “Why can’t we let Fox deal with their own bullshit for just this once?”

Ron raises his eyebrow. Turns his head to look up at one of Easy’s most competent soldiers. Isn’t surprised when the man rolls his eyes and acquiesces.

“Don’t look at me like that. I know they’re too dumb to fix their own messes. I just.. I hate being an occupation force, sir.”

“It’s not my favorite thing in the world, either.” Ron puts two cigarettes in his mouth and lights them. Offers one up to Chuck, which is accepted all too readily. “Things were easier when we were still an invasion force. This current tactic of containing the enemy and accepting surrender this freely is probably going to come back to haunt us.”

“I think I liked it better in Normandy. Less complicated. Less prisoners, too.” Chuck exhales a cloud of smoke. Tilts his head back as if he means to soak up the sun. “Do you want two sentries at every post? Some translators at the busiest access points?”

“That, and one or two vehicles moving between the posts. Do you still have the communication line to the intelligence unit? Hammond’s been notified that you might contact him in case any of their higher-ups don’t feel like surrendering to your rank.”

Chuck snorts out a rather scathing laugh. “I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that those assholes don’t realize I could just shoot them for mouthing off, or the fact that they’re going to have to deal with Hammond. I’ll talk it over with Hammond before tonight, though.”

“You wouldn’t shoot them, Chuck.” Ron’s relatively sure of that, even when the man makes a non-committal noise beside him and the smoke that furls out of his mouth might be akin to a dragon’s breath. “You’d just glare at them the way you did at me during that raffle.”

“Didn’t help at all, now did it?”

Ron shakes his head and laughs. Receives a rather sharp elbow to his side for the laughter, though when he glances sideways Chuck is smiling too. He nudges the man none too gently as he spots a rather haggard Lewis Nixon slowly make his way up the stairs. Smirks as Chuck mutters an irreverent “oh shit, more work” under his breath at the sight of the intelligence officer.

“Ron!”

“Oh shit,” mutters Ron, purposefully echoing Chuck, “more work.”

The startled choking noise Chuck makes beside him is the only reason why he’s finding it hard to glare at Nixon, whose hands are clenched around a folder that Ron is sure does not contain anything positive. Nixon looks rumpled, as though he hasn’t slept in a week, and the man’s eyes are more hollow than usual.

“You’ve got something for me?” asks Ron as Nixon comes to a halt several steps below. “Please tell me it’s not another one of Fox’s fuck-ups.”

“Nothing as dramatic as that. Hammond came through on something.” Nixon’s fingers tap the folder he’s holding. There’s a staccato pace to it that spells trouble. “Any idea where I can find Liebgott, Chuck?”

“Yeah, sir, he’s with Web.” Chuck gestures vaguely at some of the upstairs windows. “I could chase him out here for you if you give me a couple of seconds. Need to go talk to Hammond anyway about tonight’s patrol.”

“He’ll appreciate that. Said he was not amused by the idea of potentially having to deal with Malarkey again?”

Chuck rolls his eyes skyward. “Kitty Grogan is a menace and her letters are a bad influence on Malark, sir,” he says, “but it’s a damn sight better than the staring he used to do all the time.” He scrambles to his feet. “I’m going to go grab Lieb for you. You gonna stay here?”

At Nixon’s nod, Chuck takes off up the stairs and vanishes from view. Ron turns to find Nixon looking him up and down in a measuring way that he definitely does not care for.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I still need you to shut up,” he warns, even as Nixon’s mouth curves into a smirk. “Talk to me about what Hammond came through on instead.”

Nixon seats himself below Ron and wordlessly hands him the folder. Ron blinks. Watches a stray shadow curl itself around his hand before the sun breaks its hold. He sighs. Prepares himself for this side of their war.

Ron opens the folder.

* * *

“Liebgott!”

“Sir?”

Ron raises a hand. Beckons the man down to where Nixon and he are seated. He almost smiles as he takes in Liebgott’s fast pace, brisk movements, and darting eyes. Ron doesn’t think the man knows the first thing about relaxing and sitting still. There is something casually hurried about him, as though all the cities of the United States took up residence beneath his skin. At times, however, the man reminds him of nothing but an undertow.

He rather likes Liebgott, which is probably the only reason why he is not going to do this himself.

“Got a job for you, if you want it.”

“Why wouldn’t I want it?” Liebgott asks. He sinks down onto the stairs and stares back and forth between Ron and Nixon with all the agitated energy of a force of nature being bent into small corners and confined spaces. Rather belatedly, he adds something else. “Sir.”

“We found the commander of the camp.” Nixon taps the thin folder with one hand. “Took us a bit, because none of the Germans were inclined to talk. Some of their brass finally took offense to him leaving without setting the _whole_ place on fire first.” The intelligence officer’s mouth draws into a very grim line. “They sold him out. Turns out, he’s practically living on our doorstep.”

“You want me to pay him a visit.”

Nixon and Ron share a glance.

“Not alone,” replies Ron to an unspoken question in Nixon’s gaze. “Take two people you trust with you. Do not inform anyone else about where you are going.” Nixon’s mouth curves into a half-smile at that. He guessed correctly, then. This isn’t something Winters will know until _after_. He heaves a sigh at the implication. “Liebgott, I will give you no order beyond paying that man a visit. Do you understand?”

“What the good captain means to say,” drawls Nixon, all languid speech but tightness around his eyes, “is that you have our full permission to do whatever the hell you want after you find him.”

Liebgott’s eyes widen at the implication. _Good_. The soldier isn’t that far gone yet, then, that he doesn’t realize how much they will allow him to do. He watches as Liebgott’s mouth tightens and his features harden. His eyes remain the only thing that sparks life.

“Thank you, sirs.”

“It is the only thing we can do for you.” Ron knows the truth as he says it. Needs Liebgott to know this, too. “I don’t know what it will bring you. This is your journey, Liebgott, you understand?”

“Crystal clear, sir.” A salute, then, delivered with more respect than he thought Liebgott would possess. “I will let you know when it’s done.”

Liebgott strolls back up the stairs before he can return the salute.

“You do realize he’s probably going to take Webster with him, yeah?”

Nixon sounds delighted at the prospect of being privy to another one of the very long and very drawn-out arguments between Liebgott and their resident amateur writer. They’d spent one day in Germany just looking back and forth between an increasingly irate Liebgott, gestures filled with a rising tide, and an enthralled-looking Webster, walking into the waves with nothing but a roll of his eyes and a steady voice.

“I know he will.” Ron laughs, then, and shakes his head. “I think Sisk might be the third party, given how often he and Liebgott have put their heads together to speak since Landsberg.” He has seen the men band together after the camp, form a close-knit circle around Liebgott’s volatile presence, and knows Sisk is one of those most trusted to have anyone’s back. “It’s not a bad group.”

“Not at all. Sisk as back-up, Webster as voice of reason.” Nixon nods. “It’ll get done.”

“If not..”

“I’ll deal with it. You and I will then have one more thing in common.”

He laughs even sharper, now. “Nixon, we don’t have one damn thing in common at all.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Sparky.”

* * *

“Captain Speirs.”

“Major Winters, sir.”

Dick Winters still looks uncomfortable with the title, even though it is likely the most well-deserved promotion the army will see in this war. The red-haired man shifts from his left foot to his right a little too obviously. Scrapes his throat once. Twice.

“I wish you’d told me about the assignment you gave to Liebgott.”

He makes a noise that could potentially be taken for acquiescence. “I requested the information for my own benefit at first, Dick. I want to find those bastards and put them to justice.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t think of Liebgott until later.”

“What was it, Ron, that made you think of that as a good idea?”

“I don’t think it was a good idea. I think it was the only option that would offer him any semblance of peace. Landsberg was.. a goddamn nightmare.” He rubs his eyes. “I couldn’t sleep for two days, after. Liebgott was doing worse than that, with only Webster really getting any kind of reaction out of him at all.” He snorts. “Wasn’t a good reaction, but at least it was something. Malarkey and Heffron could barely get him to move, before. Even at Berchtesgaden, you could tell there was a weight on him.”

“Resolving a weight doesn’t always happen with violence.”

His mouth twists downward. He knows where Dick is coming from. There has always been peace in the man’s eyes, even in the middle of combat. There is no violence for the sake of it, no bloodied knuckles or drunken judgment, no urge to exact vengeance.

“Liebgott deserved the choice on how to resolve it.” He makes his words sound as final as he dares. Keeps his eyes fixed on the coin between his fingers. “You can be proud of him, Dick. All that rage, all that pain, and he still went for a swift kill. A kill that didn’t even happen, in the end, not like that.”

“I was told Sisk killed the commander.”

“He did.” He snorts out an almost-laugh at the memory of Skinny Sisk looking him dead in the eye and confirming the death. “Dick, I actually made the mistake of asking Sisk why he was the one who took the shot. You know what he said?”

Dick Winters shakes his head slowly.

“The disrespect, sir.” He knows how to mimic Sisk’s distinct voice pretty well by now. Ron chuckles as Dick blinks and raises his eyebrows in obvious surprise. “For a man like that to assume he could walk away and keep his life after taking so much from others.”

A nod of acknowledgment loosens his breath in his lungs. It’s not permission, not quite, and certainly not absolution, but it is the best he knows Dick can give him. He has no doubt that Nixon will face the greater ire, though Dick never remains angry with the intelligence officer’s many vices and flaws for long. Ron supposes there is a love in that that runs entirely parallel to the love Dick has for his men.

“Just tell me first next time.”

“Yes, sir.” Ron nods. Salutes. Contemplates. “Apparently, one of D Company’s old soldiers came into his own and finally responded to a god’s calling.” He’s fiercely, fiercely proud of Hammond accepting the bond and utilizing it in such a manner. “None of the Germans have been able to withstand his line of questioning. You should probably know that he handed Nix the last-known locations for at least three others.”

“Oh for Wisdom’s sake, haven’t we suffered enough?”

He smirks as Dick stalks off, presumably on the hunt for poor Lewis Nixon. He has no doubt that Nixon will repay him in kind sometime in the near future, but for right now it’s vastly amusing to watch a rather rattled Dick seek out the man who’s been glued to his side for as long as Ron’s known them. Nixon has been too volatile lately. Too vengeful. If there’s going to be a hunt, Ron resolves to keep Nixon far away from it.

_Haven’t we suffered enough?_

He tips his drink back and sets the glass down. Shakes his head in the hopes of clearing the echo of Dick’s voice from his mind.

_Haven’t we suffered enough?_

* * *

A frantic knocking on his door in the dead of night makes him shoot upright and grab for a weapon faster than ever. He throws the door open to find Talbert. Haggard-looking, near-tears Talbert.

“Grant’s been shot.”

For a moment, he believes he has misheard. _We’re at peace, aren’t we? We are supposed to live, all of us._ A weight drops into his stomach, cold and relentless, and weighs him down like rocks at the bottom of a riverbed. He wants to hurl.

_Grant._ His insides twist and clamp down on his breath. Nausea kicks in, swirling at the bottom of the pit he feels he is about to topple into. It takes a moment to identify the feeling. _Chuck. Please, gods be good, let this be a nightmare I will wake from._

“How bad?” he demands, then, even as he almost bowls Talbert over in his rush to get past the man. His next demand is even sharper in tone. “The shooter?”

“Chuck was shot in the head, but he’s breathing. Shooter’s still at large.”

Talbert follows in his footsteps as he thunders down the hallway. Comes to walk beside him for the first time in this entire war.

“I want him hunted down. I want him _found_.” His voice darkens as he gives the order. He’s careful not to let it shake, even when his hands tremble and his stomach swoops downward in silent knowing. A life for a life. “Where’s Chuck?”

Talbert’s eyebrows raise infinitesimally. “With the Doc. They’re waiting for the surgeon.” There is defeat in the latter words, as though the title ‘surgeon’ has somehow become synonymous with death. It’s a superstition that permeates the company. It’s one that serves them ill tonight. “I assume you’ll be going out to.. hunt? Sir?”

“You assume wrong.”

The words come out almost strangled. He wants the hunt. Craves it with every fiber of his being. His blood calls for it. Howls a challenge at him that he wants to rise to. Talbert – Tab, he reminds himself, the man prefers Tab – is not wrong at all. He wants to claw his way to the shooter and turn the man inside out with his bare hands. He wants to rip into the man’s skin and tear his life from him. He wants to hunt and kill with no man there to stop him.

This is _his_ fault. His fault for coming up with the tactics that would transition them from invasion force to occupation force. His fault for indulging Chuck’s good ideas and including them in his own plans. His fault for giving patrol orders. His fault for letting Chuck coordinate patrols and be the main go-to man for any issues. His fault. His fault. His fault.

Ron clenches his fists and tries not to scream.

“I want to see Chuck,” he grounds out once the guilt knots itself tightly in his belly. Tab’s own barely contained rage beside him does nothing to aid him in his self-control. He cannot turn the man or himself loose. Not yet. “You’re coming with me.”

If they ask him later how he got from his own quarters to the medic’s space, he will not be able to recount any detail. One minute he is walking in endless winding corridors. The next he is being shown into the spacious room where his world shifts and very nearly crumbles.

Roe is already present. Easy’s medic has one hand on Chuck’s shoulder and the other on a bag of plasma. The bandages around Chuck’s head are already tainted red with blood. The man himself does not move. It’s foreign to see him lie still with no spark of life taking possession of his gestures or his smile.

It’s entirely _wrong_.

Ron’s feet move as though he is stuck in a marshland that pulls his feet downward into the earth and anchors him there. It feels like it takes an hour to move to Chuck’s side, even when the world around him seems to operate on normal speed. Tab is at the bed long before Ron. Roe is moving, sure hands checking Chuck for further injuries, in that lightning-quick way he has developed after too many days in combat.

He stares down at Chuck when he is finally at his side. Chuck is pale, drawn, silent. The only sign of life is the steady rise and fall of his chest. He takes Chuck’s left hand in his own the way he did when he made a threefold vow to the man. There is no answering squeeze this time. No fleeting smile or teasing remark, either, and perhaps seeing Chuck so quiet is the strangest thing of all. He clasps the sergeant’s hand just a little tighter for it, as though the very weight of his own hand can tether the man to this earth a little while longer. He runs his thumb along the callouses and small scars that mar the man’s skin.

“ _I can blast our way to the Eagle’s Nest, cap’n. Just tell me where to shoot.”_

“ _You and that bazooka against the world, huh?”_

_A shrug. A smile. His eyes, in sunlight, are nothing like the moon. They are the open sky._

“ _Give them hell, sergeant.”_

He barely senses the surgeon’s approach. He blinks against the sudden light. He wants to entangle Chuck’s hand with his own and keep him here. Keep him together.

“ _I can’t imagine how peace feels to you, sir.”_

“ _Ask me when I’m not drunk, Grant, ask me then.”_

Peace feels like he is drowning. Like he is miles underneath the ocean, so deep that no light will reach him, and there is a flood raging overhead where his life used to be. He’s submerged but rising now. Furious. Furious. Furious.

“Gods.”

“What?” he demands, eyes seeing the surgeon without really seeing him before he fixes his gaze on Chuck’s face again.

The surgeon’s assessment is swift. Cold. Deadly.

“He’s not going to make it.”

He wants to rip the man’s cigarette from his lips and tell him to try saying that again.

_He has to make it. He has to. He has to. There is no alternative. No option but survival._

“You can’t operate on him?”

Roe’s voice, soft and incredulous, asks clarification. There is something in the medic’s silver tongue that speaks of being tired of begging death for anything.

_I will be the one to beg, this time._

“Not me. You’d need a brain surgeon.” Not _this_ surgeon, then, not this useless sack of wasted potential. Not any surgeon he knows in the entirety of the goddamn army is specialized in brain injuries. It’s a gross oversight. He is almost ready to throttle the man, but Chuck’s hand rests in his and he will not do violence to that. “Even if you had one, I don’t think there is any hope.”

Hope.

_Hope_.

He rounds on Tab. “Find the shooter. Alive.” He lets go of Chuck’s hand. Walks up to his head instead. “Come on, help me.”

Tab understands him all too well. The other soldier grabs the foot of Chuck’s stretcher almost instantly. Helps him lift Chuck. Carry him.

“What’re you doin’?”

Roe, bless him, had not counted on the impossible.

“We’re gonna go find a brain surgeon!”

_Fuck you, army surgeon,_ he thinks darkly to himself. _Hope exists. In this. In him._

He rattles off commands to Tab, who for once shuts up and listens with more attention than even Winters normally receives from the man. Tab and Grant are friends, he knows, never straying far from each other’s foxholes or confidence. The simmering, clawing rage that lives inside of him has taken up residence in Winters’s most prized soldier now. Their eyes meet. Chuck’s body lies between them.

Just tonight, for this one hunt, Tab is _his_ man.

“We’re going to get some locals to help us out,” Ron says, leaving unsaid that he would march straight up to Berlin and enlist Hitler’s own medical staff if it meant saving this one life. “You find me that shooter.”

“Yes, sir. Mostly alive, you said?”

He allows himself a fleeting smile. “Mostly, yes.”

* * *

The local brain surgeon is helpful and unhelpful in equal measure.

The man negotiates with him as soon as the door opens. Requests the gun to be put away. Requests to drive to the hospital himself. There are demands made in the tone of a man who knows full well he is needed alive and any threats to get him to comply are rendered essentially useless because of it.

Ron relinquishes control. Holsters his gun. Lets the man drive.

Roe calmly answers questions from the backseat. The medic’s voice is level, flat in absence of his usual melodic inflections, and his words concise. No, they had not attempted any surgery themselves. No, Chuck had not regained consciousness since being shot. No, there are no anomalies in Chuck’s medical history.

“Chosen by a god?” the surgeon asks as they arrive at the hospital. “Like you?”

“No.” Ron’s reply is short. Clipped. “If he were, he would not be alone now.”

The surgeon looks him up and down. Glances at Roe, who is currently snapping jumbled words in three different languages at the nurses that sprung into action at the sight of them. Glances down at Chuck’s body before meeting Ron’s eyes.

“You are here.”

_He is not alone_.

Doc Roe enters the operating room with the surgeon and nurses. The medic’s countenance is dark and steady. His hands are on Chuck’s right arm. He will not leave. They will not make him. Fate’s presence hums to life within the spaces between the hospital staff right before the doors close.

Ron stands in the hospital’s corridor and refuses to go. It takes a second for him to understand that, for the first time in his life, he is scared of what losing this battle might mean.

“ _I heard what you did for Liebgott, sir.”_

“ _It was as much for the world’s benefit as it was for Liebgott’s, sergeant.”_

_A too-knowing look._

“ _No, it really wasn’t.”_

_A pause._

“ _You are a good man, captain.”_

“You are better,” he murmurs into the quiet. His eyes don’t leave the door behind which Chuck will wage the greatest battle of his life. “You may be the best of all of us.”

_He stops in his tracks at Toccoa to observe another company only once. It’s perhaps not surprising that it is Herbert Sobel’s company that makes him do so, as Easy is building a name for itself with every day that passes in the heat of the Georgian summer._

_One of Easy’s NCOs is calmly staring Sobel in the face. He has put himself between the captain, who is fuming, and another soldier, who is on the floor. The NCO’s face is impassive. Carved of marble, like the statues that once adorned the temples of Rome. The NCO’s stance does not yield. Impressive._

_He watches Sobel revoke half a dozen weekend passes. He watches Sobel’s cheeks flush and redden with every moment that passes in which the NCO does not fold. He shakes his head, finally amused, as the NCO calmly utters words that protect his men but not himself._

_If he pulls some strings of his own, after, he will never let the NCO know. If he speaks with Nixon, after, he is careful to omit his interest in the NCO and utterly reckless in his verbal evisceration of Sobel. If he is called to Colonel Sink’s office, eventually, after, he will protect Chuck Grant the way Grant protected his men._

Ron Speirs drops to his knees in an Austrian hospital. He raises his eyes to the white ceiling. He folds his hands into his lap. He has no idea how to do this. This is foreign to him, even as the words spill out into his mind and simmer on his tongue. He has never done this.

Tonight, he will try.

“Please,” he rasps out. His heart stutters in his chest. “Please help Chuck. Please.”

He feels entirely inadequate, as though he has not earned the right to ask for anything. He certainly has not earned the right to ask for this. The blood of many coats his hands. His face is the last many saw before taking their final breath. He destroys everything he touches.

He doesn’t want to destroy this, too.

“Please help them save him.” It’s the first time in his life that he is asking instead of claiming. It’s the first time he asks for anything at all. It’s the first time he prays in words that are broken by his voice, rasped out into the quiet suspense of a waiting game that feels all too much like another war. “My life for his, if it comes to that. My life for Chuck Grant’s. Please.”

He is on his knees in a foreign hospital with nothing on his tongue but prayer.

He is on his knees asking to die so another may live.

“Let him live. Take me instead.”

Ron Speirs kneels before death and surrenders.


	10. X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a pretty obvious Jane Eyre quote in this chapter. We also finally come to the scene that made me cry writing it, as something in our story comes to a close.. The latter half of this chapter is captured, perhaps perfectly, by Fleetwood Mac's Landslide, which is where I leave you:
> 
> _Well, I've been afraid of changing/'Cause I've built my life around you/But time makes you bolder/Even children get older/And I'm getting older too_

* * *

He keeps his life.

Doc Roe, bone-tired but eyes alight with a fresh storm, had walked out of the surgery room to find him on his knees. The medic had barely batted an eye at the sight. “ _Chuck will survive,”_ he’d said, _“likely without too much damage, too.”_

He’d overheard one of the nurses call it a miracle. Ron had risen to his feet, after, stared at his hands, and wondered when he was going to drop dead.

His entire drive back from the hospital is spent with a single mantra in his head. _Alive, alive, alive._ He drives back to the hotel thinking of nothing but Chuck Grant’s survival.

Nixon is the one to greet him in the lobby. The intelligence officer’s face is stony. It’s a strange thing to see him without so much as a vague smile lurking around the corners of his mouth. Even stranger to see the coldness in his gaze, foreign even, which has not appeared in full since Landsberg.

“They caught the shooter.” It’s the first thing Nixon says to him. Really the only thing Ron needs to know, too, but Nixon has never been good at leaving well enough alone. The man sounds disgusted. Judgmental. “He’s piss-drunk. They found him terrorizing one of the local girls.”

Ron closes his eyes. “The girl?”

“Alive, panicked. We left Spina with her to attend to her injuries.”

He nods. Opens his eyes. “The shooter?”

“Alive, too, though some of the men are attempting to remedy that right now. They’re through there somewhere.”

He doesn’t need to ask why Nixon is not in the room with them. Does not need to ask where Winters, Welsh, or Lipton are either. This is not something for them to solve, even though they must know of the night’s events the same way Nixon does. Ron is Easy’s captain now. The responsibility is his.

The decision is, too.  
  


He stalks off toward the rough direction Nixon’s hand indicated. Barely hears the man calling out for news about Chuck Grant’s condition. Elects to ignore it the same way he always turned just a little deaf whenever Nixon needed something particularly obnoxious. His breath doesn’t come easy. It catches in his throat, wraps around his lungs, heaves from his nose in short bursts until it leaves his mouth in a gasp.

There are only two men waiting for him. He isn’t surprised to see George Luz, whose trickster ways do not mesh with the bleak violence, with a deck of cards in his hands. If he is honest with himself, which he always tries to be, he is not very surprised to see Floyd Talbert either.

“Where is he?” he barks, gun in hand, upon seeing Tab’s tired face and Luz’s worried one.

“How is Grant?” Tab asks instead, pressing for news even as Ron asks again where to find that piece of shit that shot Tab’s friend. “How is he?”

“Where is he?!”

Ron thunders the demand out this time. He can’t think of Chuck right now. He has struck a bargain for the man’s life that he fully intends to uphold. Life calls for a life. Death drives a hard deal that way. An eye for an eye. No turning the other cheek. He’s seen it a million times.

Tab’s eyebrows rise. His eyes are on the next door.

It’s answer enough.

He strides over to the room they are keeping the shooter in. Opens the glass door. Looks at each of the men inside before his eyes fix on the sad, sorry scrap that indicates the bloodied mess of a man they have put on a chair.

“This him?” he demands, already knowing the answer that Randleman confirms.

The shooter is rasping out breaths. Spitting up blood.

It’s not enough.

His men part before him as he steps closer. Randleman provides the man’s identity. A replacement. Probably hasn’t seen war a day in his life. I Company. He’s almost surprised it’s not Fox.

He asks the shooter where the weapon is. Demands it. His blood hums with purpose. A life for a life, given by the same weapon that takes.

The shooter’s one good eye fixes on him. Leering. Taunting. “What weapon?”

He strikes out at the man with the handle of his gun. Smacks him clean in the face. _Yes, more. Good, more._ Something filthy uncoils inside his belly as he strikes true. Blood streaks his hand. It’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough.

“When you talk to an officer,” he says, clipping the words out the way he was taught to clip bullets at an enemy long ago, “you say _sir_.”

His men barely look at him. They flinch when they do, almost without knowing it. It’s a reflex formed by the ugly thing that threatens to claw out of his throat and do harm, by the fire that alights in his mind and threatens to burn it all down to the ground, by the fury that makes his hands tremble and lodges itself beneath his skin like a live wire of electric current.

Ron checks his gun. Sets it so that a single touch, a single intent, could unleash the damage he craves.

He peers down at the shooter. The man is a gasping mess. The stench of liquor that wafts into Ron’s nostrils is damn near overwhelming. It’s this that contorts his face into disgust. It’s this that finally makes him point his gun at the man.

His own men step back as he does.

Some do not watch. Avert their gaze. Malarkey’s presence feels off-kilter, as though the scales his god carries are tipped too far to one side. More’s energy is calmer, but the man’s trickster ability to roll with the punches may very well end tonight. Liebgott, hovering at his shoulder, feels like a tidal wave that has paused at the sight of a greater storm.

It should be the easiest kill of his life.

It isn’t.

His hand is unwavering at first. Then, the trembling starts. The gun shakes. He can’t steady it.

“ _I was thinking about peace, as one does these days.”_

“ _Want to share, Chuck?”_

_He has dropped all pretense around the staff sergeant who now tips back another drink before he settles against the balcony railing beside Ron. They are on the floor on the first day after the war. Half-drunk, half-smiling, with something between them he cannot name._

“ _You have that inside you, you know? Even in the middle of war, it’s in your eyes. Peace.” Chuck’s words are partially slurred. His head threatens to drop onto Ron’s shoulder. He knows he will let it happen without comment when it does. “That’s how I knew this would end. If you have both inside you, chosen as you are, then we will too.”_

“ _Is it a good thought?” he asks, head tilting to rest against Chuck’s brow. “That I will keep my promise and bring you peace?”_

“ _The best.”_

He breaks his aim. Looks at the blood on his hand. It seems foreign on his skin, now, even though the red coat should be one of familiarity. He brushes it off on the shooter’s clothes. Brushes off the idea that blood for blood fixes anything at all. Stares down at the man and heaves a deep sigh.

He lifts his hand to his head. Removes his cap. Clicks his gun back to safety as he walks away.

“Have the MPs take care of this piece of shit,” he commands Randleman.

He’s so fucking tired.

He passes Talbert, who has finally dared set foot inside the room. Tab’s question follows after his footsteps. It’s a logical assumption that the man makes. It’s also, mercifully, the wrong one.

“Grant’s dead?”

“No!” he calls, pocketing the gun and turning back around briefly. “Kraut surgeon says he’s gonna make it.”

Life demands life. This, he knows. He stays his hand.

* * *

He catches utter hell for _not_ killing a man far more than he ever did for killing one. There is a degree of irony in that, he is sure, although the amusing part of it is lost on him now that he stands in Colonel Sink’s office. He has explained the facts to the best of his knowledge. Drew off the testimonies of the men present at the scene of the shooting, then explained everything else.

Sink is utterly irate because of it.

“You are war-chosen! War-chosen, Speirs! And yet you _dare_ stand here and tell me you did not kill Charles Grant’s would-be murderer?”

Ron raises his eyebrow ever so slightly. Keeps his voice smooth. “I thought it was better for Military Police to handle his fate, sir.” He pauses. “I have been told one too many times that the decision to kill is not always mine alone to make.”

“The presence of the Military Police never once stopped you from killing anyone before, captain! You should have shot that son of a bitch!”

“We were at war then, sir,” he says, careful not to spit ire in the colonel’s face. “That’s a different time. We are supposed to be at peace now. Peace rules differently than war does.”

“You’re not governed by peace.”

“It doesn’t mean I don’t recognize its value, sir.” He is so tired. So fucking tired. His hand trembles against his leg. “I have done all I can to save sergeant Grant’s life. Local surgeon thinks he’ll pull through in one piece.” He remembers Chuck’s hand in his. Recalls eyes with the color of the sky, calm and unafraid. “I cannot have him wake up to find that I paid for his life with blood.”

Colonel Sink looks tired too. The older man deflates visibly. Pinches the bridge of his nose with one hand and gestures dismissively with the other. Ron straightens his back. Salutes with all the narrow precision he knows the man appreciates.

He turns to leave.

“You fit in with Easy,” the man says, then, and Ron thinks he’s hardly heard greater praise in his life than this. He almost turns back to face him, but his eyes are burning far too bright for that. “The men appreciate you. Winters speaks highly of you. I must confess.. I did not understand the depth of your own love for them until just now.”

“Surprised, sir?” His mouth quirks upward. His hand’s on the doorknob. He turns back, despite the fact that his eyes glitter and his face is an open book. “If there is one thing War has taught me, I would say that it is how to love. She did always say that it is the only reason why we fight against darkness at all.”

He doesn’t stick around to hear Sink’s reply.

* * *

“If you’re here to judge yesterday’s inaction,” he says, not even turning around to face her, “please don’t. I had quite enough of that already.”

He grimaces. Knocks back the remainder of his drink. Sets the glass down with more force than strictly necessary. After Sink had come Winters, who was quietly pleased about the not-murdering-someone part but somehow still surprised about it in a way that hurt, and Nixon, who was amused and appalled in equal measure at ‘the appearance of Ronald Speirs’s sudden moral backbone’. He shakes his head. Doesn’t even want to get into this morning’s rather stupid altercation with Alton More or Floyd Talbert’s transfer request that he saw coming a mile off and was still disappointed by.

This is shaping up rather nicely to become another week spent in hell.

He’s unaware he’s said that last thought out loud until she snorts out her disgust and tells him to get his shit together. “Don’t be so fucking melodramatic.” The slight slur in her words speaks volumes as to her exhaustion. “You’re doing just fine, honey. I’m not here to judge you on anything.”

He turns around. Raises an eyebrow at her.

“Well,” she amends, “I _would_ have judged you rather fiercely if you’d just let Chuck die.”

“I couldn’t let –”

“Hm.” She effectively cuts him off from saying anything else. “I don’t think you could, no. I don’t think you understand why, but maybe you don’t need to yet.” Her smile comes easy, but lacks its usual radiance. “Are you still preparing to move into the Pacific Theater?”

“Flamethrowers.” He nods. “Humidity. Crabs, rats, mud.” He snorts. Rolls his eyes skyward. “My optimism tells me we are about to die.”

“I don’t even want to know what your pessimism says.”

He watches as she hops up on his desk and picks up one of the few silver trinkets he hasn’t shipped to his ex-wife in England yet. Observes as she casually tosses the trinket back and forth between one hand and the other. She’s faster than him at sleight of hand, still. He supposes she always will be.

He’s suddenly disappointed in her.

“Where were you?”

“Where was I when?”

“When Chuck was shot.” He hates how petulant he sounds. How much of a child is in him, still, now that he looks at her and demands to know her whereabouts. He hates it. His voice turns louder; his speech is vicious. “Where the fuck were you when I needed you? Do you think our victory makes you exempt from the duty you have to me? To my _men_?”

“Duty?” She laughs. Almost scoffs. “Duty, Ronald?”

“Don’t you laugh at me!” He thunders the words out. Emphasizes them by slamming the door to his office shut and rounding on her. “This thing? You and me? As you like to remind me, it’s very much a two-way street. I did everything for you. I gave _everything_ to you. And now? Now that one of my men needed you?”

“He didn’t need me. He needed a brain surgeon.”

“He needed _you_. It’s you that put him here. It’s you that put all of them here. It’s you that is keeping us here. You have a responsibility to them. Not just to the ones you cherry-picked, like me, but also to all the rest of them.”

“Are you keeping score, Ronald? Thinking of all the times you did something for me and all the times I did something for you? Are your tally marks coming up short in some kind of tactically strange column only _you_ could possibly manage to understand?”

“You’re goddamn right I’m keeping score!”

“Is that what I am, to you?” She sounds smaller than ever before. He blinks as her head drops and the room’s shadows go back to their rightful place. “A balancing scale?”

He scoffs. “If I wanted a balancing scale, I would go speak with Donald Malarkey right now.” He pauses. Contemplates. Smirks. “Actually, no. I would elect to have this very same conversation with Kitty Grogan.”

“Before you steal all her table silver.”

“I would let her keep the spoons. I have no use for those.”

“Your ex-wife might.”

He huffs at the low blow she delivers in her own petulance. “Stop distracting from the real problem here.” He points a finger at her. “You are nowhere close to done. You’re still raging out there, in the Pacific, where your _other_ chosen died a death that left you grieving his loss in a way that spooked half my men.” He remembers the shrieking crows in the trees around Haguenau more than he does the actual village. He gestures at the papers on his desk, the weapons stacked against the wall, the dried blood on his sleeves. “Does this look done to you? Does it? How much longer before my men fall to another one of your hidden blades? How much longer before I join your other chosen in death?”

“I feel pretty done.” Her laugh is bitter. Her nails claw into his wooden desk. “Does it help when I tell you that it’s almost over? That I’ve almost had enough?”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I won’t let them kill you.” Her eyes are wild. Her mouth too red. The shadows on her face shift and sharpen. “I will not let them. I will yield before I ever let you die.” Her voice turns low, urgent, like the rumble of an earthquake right before the earth itself begins to shift. “Ronald. There is not a single war in this lifetime that you have fought without me, and that _includes_ the fight for Chuck Grant’s life. I just rather thought..”

“What?”

“I thought he needed me far more than you did.”

He takes a step back. His stomach rolls. He thinks of Roe and his stormy countenance, the surgeon’s wary glances at his hands, Tab’s request to move anywhere else in the company. He thinks of Liebgott’s knowing eyes that were studying him all throughout dinner. He curses out loud. Kicks his desk for good measure.

“Hey!” The silver she’s holding almost drops to the floor. “Ronald, seriously, will you stop?”

“You can’t have him. I won’t let–” He exhales. Slumps over the desk. He groans and puts his head in his hands. His threat comes out muffled. “I won’t let you.”

Her hand comes to rest in his hair. She tugs at the strands a little too harshly, which he takes to be a warning, before her fingernails dig into the nape of his neck. He mumbles a soft curse. Rubs his eyes.

“Believe me, honey, I had understood that much.” The softness in her voice does nothing to coat the cold steel that’s in her touch. “All the gods on this earth heard you that night. He’s all yours. Which, well, technically? Sort of makes him mine, too?”

“You can’t have him,” he repeats.

“Does this mean I can make you _his_ problem instead of mine, now?”

He lifts his head to find her smiling down at him.

“I’m a great problem to have,” he claims before laying his head on the desk again. “Better than any old war.”

“Watch who you’re calling old, mister.”

“You’re older than Rome.”

“I feel so loved right now.”

“You should.” He grins. “Let me know when you need help crossing the street.”

“Ronald.”

“What?”

“I wish to do such violence to you.”

He laughs at her the same way he did when he was eighteen and not scared of anything.

* * *

The hospital corridor is familiar to him now. The nurses do no more than glance at him, perhaps nod at him in recognition as he passes. The Kraut surgeon tends to offer him coffee or something stronger whenever they cross paths, which he never accepts but always expresses gratitude for. Lipton, on the two occasions the lieutenant had accompanied him here, had had no difficulty spending an hour having coffee with the man as though they were simply old friends catching up after spending years apart.

Chuck occupies the room at the very end. He’s not the only American soldier within its walls, with accidents great and small happening almost continuously, but he is the only one with a room all to himself.

He doesn’t really know why he keeps on visiting a couple of times per day. Chuck hasn’t woken yet, though his body is responsive and the surgeon continues to be hopeful. He sits with him for some time every day, often taking papers or something else with him to pass the time. Sometimes, late in the evenings, he will just sit and read out loud.

Today, he is not surprised to find that Chuck already has a visitor.

“– gonna go like that, you know? Perconte was freaking out all the way to the – sir!”

“Tab.” He smirks as Floyd Talbert shoots upright from his reclining position and actually manages to salute him in one go. “At ease, staff sergeant. How is he?”

“The same, sir.” Talbert frowns, but doesn’t settle back onto his chair. “Babe and Doc Roe said he moved his right hand a bit today. Sometimes his eyes open a little, too, but he’s not really reacting to anything we can identify.”

“Slow and steady, like the surgeon said. Apparently, this is normal for recovery from traumatic brain injuries.”

Talbert’s mouth curves downward in obvious disapproval. “Can’t stand the thought of Chuck staying here while the rest of us ship out, sir.”

Ron has nothing he can say to that. It’s a concern that carries a weight he doesn’t want to identify. It’s lodged somewhere deep in his belly in a way that taints his nights with sleeplessness. He pours over intelligence reports until he passes out, these days, which helps with the feeling but not so much with the consistent ache in his lower back.

“I won’t leave him alone,” he says, in an attempt to reassure himself more than he wishes to reassure Tab. He doesn’t know how this will work. He wants to ship out to war. The desire to stay right here is louder and far more demanding. “You have my word on that, all right?”

“I trust that, sir.”

He blinks in surprise. Reminds himself to tell Harry Welsh that Tab finally got the jump on him.

“Why?” He can’t help the incredulity that creeps into his voice. Tab requested the transfer because he doesn’t quite see eye-to-eye with him. He’s Dick’s man through and through, cautious and caring in a way that bridges gaps between men while Ron prefers the occasional chasm. “Why trust that?”

_Why trust me?_ goes unsaid.

Tab glances back at Chuck’s sleeping form.

“ _He_ trusts you.” There is a lilt and song to Talbert’s voice that rises and falls like the breath in Chuck’s lungs. “I never fully got why. He told us you weren’t as bad as all that long before lieutenant Lipton confirmed that. Chuck’s somehow always thought the world of you.” There’s a faint smile on the man’s face as he turns to look at Ron. “We all called him crazy for it. Then I saw you, fighting to keep him alive, anchoring him with touch and speech, and I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“You’re not any different from me.” Love-chosen Talbert sounds so certain that Ron cannot even find the words to argue. “Chuck said that the only way you can place yourself in full service of war is if you love what you are fighting for. If you love something so much, so beyond all measure, that you would die defending it.”

Ron inclines his head in a nod.

“I came to war to fight for the people and things I love.” Tab’s voice is soft, but his tone certain. “I don’t think you came to war like that. I think she chose you long before you knew yourself capable of love at all.” The man refuses to meet his eyes as he strides toward the door. “I think you found your true self here, captain. And I think the man on that bed has everything to do with why.”

The door clicks shut behind Talbert before Ron can get a word in edgewise.

He sighs. Rakes his hand through his hair and wonders, not for the first time, how it is that Easy’s god-chosen always manage to get the best of him.

His hand clenches around the book he took with him. It’s one of the few English books he has managed to uncover while ransacking the houses. This one is from Haguenau, spine worn to the point where some of the pages have come loose, dog-eared and well-loved. He doesn’t care that it is written by a woman, or that the subject is one of romance mired in a ghost story unlike any he’s ever heard. It’s the only one that feels right to read.

“ _He is not to them what he is to me," I thought: "he is not of their kind._ ” He reads the sentence he stopped at last time as he makes his way to the bed. He takes up residence on Chuck’s right side, foregoes the chair in favor of the bed itself, and settles against the man’s legs. Chuck’s hand comes to rest against him. “ _I believe he is of mine- I am sure he is- I feel akin to him-”_ he reads out loud, his fingertips gracing the warmth of the other man’s skin, “ _I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him._ ”

He reads throughout the night. Draws his feet up on the bed until he comes to rest against the headboard. He reads of ghosts that aren’t ghosts, of all-consuming love, of the kind of devotion born of full independence.

Chuck’s head moves to rest against his thigh sometime in the early morning.

He considers it victory.

* * *

It’s the first morning after Japan’s surrender.

It’s not the last of his paperwork, although he is mostly keeping track of supply lists and occasional reassignments these days. He has signed his name with a familiar scrawl on all the papers that crossed his desk that morning. He has no doubt that there will be another batch waiting for him at the end of this day, even when Roe apologizes every time he hands his inventory list over and Carwood attempts to get rid of any paper that doesn’t require a captain’s signature.

The bureaucracy has increased tenfold now that they don’t have to worry about getting shot or blown up all the time. He supposes it’s one way to keep people busy. Doesn’t want to know the amount of paperwork he is going to face once the men realize there is no need to train for more combat and are left to their own devices.

The war is over.

He’s still alive.

It doesn’t feel wrong, not really, but he never expected to live this long. He’s a little unsteady in this first light of day now, as though it is a sunrise he was never entitled to witness. He feels as though something inside him is coming to an end.

“Ron.”

Her eyes are made of the same darkness he knows, but she is clothed in sunlight.

“War,” he greets her appearance. Bows his head. “Dear heart.”

“He is awake. Chuck.” Her smile is radiant, even as her presence flickers in and out of existence within the sun’s rays. “Waiting for you, I would say. He has been asking for you.”

“I know he’s awake.”

He didn’t know the other part. Doesn’t think it matters. Carwood’s smile had been so luminous, George Luz’s enthusiasm at his back so infectious, that he has no doubt most of Easy will pile into Chuck’s hospital room at their earliest convenience. It’ll be entirely too much, of course. He doesn’t want to add to that.

“And?” she demands. Her bare foot taps an impatient pace on the floor. She is chewing on bright pink bubblegum the same way she did back when he was six and keeping him company outside the Shepherd’s church they had barred him from entering. “When are you going to go see him?”

“Not right now. He’ll be kept busy. I can go eventually.”

Her raised eyebrow makes him feel all of six years old and guilty again. “No, you are avoiding this. Avoiding him.” Her dismissive wave is far too casual to be genuine. “I know you well enough, hm? Don’t be an idiot, honey.”

He rakes his hand through his hair. Shifts on his feet. He hates the days when she can see right through him. Times like now, when her mere presence borders on the judgmental and her impatience is tangible in the room, are the worst. He flinches as her bubblegum pops louder in her mouth than any gunshot he dreams about.

“What do I say?”

“I don’t know.” Her laughter is almost a giggle. “Why don’t you start with ‘hello’?”

“And then?” he demands, as though he is still eighteen years old and nervous about asking a girl to dance. His fingers tap a staccato pace against his trousers. He shakes his head. “I can’t fucking do this.”

“No! No, no, no.” Her hands are on his arms before he can walk away. She plants herself in front of him. Shakes her head. “You are going to walk through that door. You are going to say ‘hello’. You are going to take a seat in that room and keep that man company.” The inflection in her voice bends toward a command. “He asked for you on and off throughout the night. I assured him you would come.”

“You were with him?”

“He asked for you as soon as he woke. Startled the nurse, you know, the one who doesn’t like you very much?” Her hands grip his arms a little tighter. Her eyes shine. “Then he asked for me. To thank me.”

“Thank you?”

She hums. “For listening to you, when you asked. For being with him, in his fight.” Her hands slide down to his wrists. Her fingers tangle with his soon after. She squeezes them tightly in her grasp. “He sees you and he sees me. Unafraid. Cherish that, if nothing else.”

It sounds like an order.

“You are leaving, aren’t you?” he asks by means of reply, squeezing back and pulling her close. He breathes her in. Gunpowder, smoke, blood. Calla lilies, hyssop, sweetest honey. He presses his lips to her hair. “There is nothing left for you here.”

“You are here. You, whom I love.” Her hand finds his cheek. She sounds forlorn, sad, and just a little bit lost. Her voice wavers. Her touch does, too. She moves in and out of being with him, sometimes becoming nothing more than sunlight on his face. “Thank you. For all you gave me, Ronald Charles Speirs, thank you.”

“My pleasure.” He finds he means it, now that his own voice breaks and his eyes fill with tears he will not shed. He tilts her chin upward, so he may look at her one more time. “Thank you, ma’am, for my life. Knowing you is a gift.”

“Knowing you is an honor.”

She smiles, all dimples and glittering eyes, before her fingers trace a familiar pattern onto his brow. He huffs out a surprised breath of recognition at the touch. He is five years old and screaming. He is seven years old and huddled beneath the blankets as he clenches his fists around his teddy bear. He is nine years old and picking a fight. He is fourteen and raging, sixteen and crying, eighteen and intoxicated. He is twenty-two and laughing during sentry duty. He is twenty-four and about to jump into battle.

She has been with him all his life, even in moments where he didn’t sense her at all.

“Go on, then,” she says, now, and there is warmth and love in her even as she pushes him away. The tears on her cheeks glint in the morning sun. “Go on, honey. You have done quite enough.” She nudges him closer to the door. “It’s time.”

She sounds as though she’s proud of him. He almost turns back to embrace her, to tell her all the things that never once made it past his lips, to share all the things she must already know exist in that liminal space between them. He almost turns back to see her one more time, though he knows there is a time to come again when it will be like she never left at all.

Ron squares his shoulders. Opens the door.

He doesn’t look back.


	11. XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter almost did not exist. I'm very happy that it decided to come into being after all.

* * *

It is one of those days later in the year when all it does is rain. It’s been pouring out of the sky since the early morning hours, falling down in a harsh torrent that reminds Ron of the time he caught Webster allowing Liebgott to rage at him freely after Landsberg. Then, like now, he had felt rather like he had been swept up by a tidal wave and thrown back onto the ground with all the grace of a drowned cat.

Ron chances a glance at the man seated next to him in the vehicle. Chuck Grant’s head is tilted skyward. His eyes are closed. Rain streams down his face and trickles into his hair. The man’s uniform is as soaked through as Ron’s own, so wet that its greens are closer to a murky black. Yet, there’s a faint smile at play around the man’s lips that seems entirely out of place for this downpour they are driving through.

“Not a nice way to leave the hospital, huh?” he asks, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently. He hates this drive from Saalfelden to Zell am See, through these winding roads he might know better than the streets of Boston by now, and hates it doubly so when it rains. “Wish I’d gotten a different car than this one.” Ron’s mouth twists sourly. “One with a roof.”

“I don’t mind.” Chuck’s smile broadens. “I’m out.”

“You sure are.” Ron can’t help but smile at the sentiment. “I got you out of there before you started clawing at the walls, at least.”

The huff of laughter next to him sounds delightful. He has discovered the man is prone to impatience when being forced to sit still. Prone to overestimating himself, too, if the mad dash through hospital corridors with a wheelchair and the involvement of George Luz and Frank Perconte was anything to go by. Ron had been rather dismayed to find Chuck flat on his back in bed afterward, swearing up and down that he would never again attempt to spin circles in a wheelchair when his head was already not right to begin with.

Chuck’s head not being right is what kept him in hospital this long. Weeks, months even, have passed since victory over Japan. Half of Easy already moved out of Zell am See, onward to France and home, and the other half is about to do the same. Ron has watched them leave. Has watched Chuck’s genuine joy for the men returning home at last, and then watched that same joy transform into frustration over not being able to walk away from his own hospital bed.

“Are we still in that place? The.. uh.. bed-place.”

“The hotel?” he checks to confirm. The nod he receives from Chuck is almost grateful. “Some of the men are. Mostly those associated with regiment.” He gestures at a fork in the road up ahead. “Hammond was called back to France the day before yesterday. He vacated a cabin up that road. I’ve been moving most of my belongings there. Gonna be a while before I ship back out anywhere.”

“A cabin, huh?” He can practically feel Chuck’s eyes on him as the man’s head turns toward Ron with interest. “Should be nice.”

He chances a glance over to his right. His stomach does a little treacherous loop as the man’s slow blink and almost lazy smile focus entirely on him. He wrenches his attention back onto the road with some difficulty. If he grips the wheel a little tighter because of that smile, drives a little faster to get away from the torrid rain, he knows Chuck will not comment on it.

“Do you want to go see it?” he asks, finally, as the fork in the road comes closer and closer. Isn’t quite sure which answer he wants to receive. “It doesn’t have to be now. I mean, I know you’ve probably been looking forward to returning –”

“Ron. Now is fine.”

The words fizzle out and die on his tongue altogether at the ease with which Chuck replies. He doesn’t think he’ll tire of hearing his name pop into existence within the other man’s mouth. They have been dancing around formalities for weeks now. He has been with Chuck in that hospital every single day since the man woke. Somewhere down the line, he had become Ron. Just Ron.

He finds he rather likes it.

The ride to the cabin is mercifully short from here on out. Dark clouds pack together even more overhead. The rain turns relentless right as he steers them into a spot near the cabin. A rumble of thunder, still at a relatively safe distance, trembles through the sky.

“I’d race you to the door if me walking wasn’t already so hit-or-miss these days,” laughs Chuck as they set their feet on the ground. There’s a note of self-deprecation in his voice that Ron admires, even when he thinks the man is entirely too hard on himself. “Better get inside before that thunderstorm hits, though.”

The cabin is warmer than the rain they just left, but Ron barely suppresses a shiver as he sets foot inside. He is soaked through to the bone. His uniform is almost glued to his skin and he’s pretty sure he cannot hope to make sense of his hair anymore. He wrings out the longer strands that brush his face. Tosses his soggy pack of smokes onto the table with a snarl of dismay.

“I’m going to try and get a fire going,” he says once he sees Chuck’s trembling hands. “I think I might have some dry clothes, too.”

“A fire in a wooden cabin?”

“It’s perfectly safe.”

Chuck shakes his head, but doesn’t interfere as Ron starts puttering around in the single room the cabin holds. Hammond’s use of the fireplace had purely been for the benefit of burning papers and other intelligence and not to keep warm. His former company member carries himself differently now, having finally answered the divine call that Ron spied in him all these years ago, but the man’s practicality hasn’t faded away. It’s this long-standing practicality that means it doesn’t take Ron long at all to kindle the flames in the hearth.

“Good news,” says Chuck, in a tone that says it’s not really good news at all, “you have _some_ dry clothes. Bad news is that you just forgot to pack any shirts.”

Ron turns to find a dripping wet Chuck holding dry pants and nothing else aloft. He laughs at the rather sour expression the man’s adopted, which is the same one he witnessed in his office when he mentioned they needed to prepare for the war in the Pacific.

“It’s something, at least?” He shrugs and unbuttons his uniform jacket. “We’re not in Bastogne anymore, so we’re not likely to freeze to death. Unless you feel catching a cold is preferable?”

“No, _sir_.”

The formality is steeped in a lilt that really should warn Ron about impending danger. There’s something of a siren’s song lurking in its depths, which he knows full well he’s never been able to withstand for long. He shakes his head at it a little too fondly.

Being soldiers, they don’t usually think much about stripping out of wet uniforms and putting on something dry. They’re quick about it, really, with boots kicked off feet and wet shirts pulled off and dropped to the floor. His boots are a lost cause by now, anyway, having been dragged through the worst of Belgium and Germany. He’s never received any new ones. He’s almost convinced the supply officers hate him. Ron shudders as the fire’s warmth streaks across his clammy, cold skin. He’s glad for the dry pants, even though the lack of towels means they’ll probably cling to his body before the hour is up.

He blinks in surprise as he finally turns and sees all-too-familiar markings on Chuck’s left shoulder. Long threads of red-tipped white hued with silver move from its top all the way over his back toward his heart. Ron hisses at the sight. Steps closer to Chuck and reaches for the markings that he knows like he knows his own name, his own face, his own heart.

Chuck’s skin is coolerto the touch than his. He keeps his touch light, but the cold nips at his fingertips all the same. He can’t tell if its bite is worse around the scarring, or if it’s his own memories of dark water that vibrate through his hands and make Chuck shiver.

“She marked you,” he says, feeling rather faint and oh-so-stupid. Something twists in his belly at the thought. He wants to tear his fingers away from the patterned ridges that mar Chuck’s shoulder. He’s only ever heard her tell of this. Has never seen it on anyone but himself, least of all on a non-chosen. Her markings. Her _favor_. “She left you War-marked.”

“She had to.” Before he can pull away, Chuck already leans into the touch. Presses his shoulder to Ron’s hand fully and heaves a sigh. “Probably saved my life. Pulled me away from death by marking me.” The words, so matter of fact, make Ron’s heart go cold with dread. “D-don’t.. don’t be mad? You. You feel..”

“She didn’t tell me it was such a close call.” His voice almost breaks. His insides are all jumbled up and strewn out at the same time. “Being marked like that, this permanently.. I don’t know what that does to you. What it will do.”

Chuck turns to face him. There’s something open in his gaze that evokes the sky itself. Even now, with a storm closing in outside and the promise of lightning streaks not far behind, there is something light in his eyes that no dark could ever hope to claim. The connection between them still exists, even now that Ron’s hand falls away from his skin. Ron’s own breath is knocked from his lungs at the thought of there being a universe out there in which Chuck might have died on that operating table, in which Ron’s decision to kneel before a god that is not his own would be met with pain, in which they would never stand within this cabin and face one another.

“I’ll live.” There’s a dry note in Chuck’s voice that almost makes him laugh. “She.. I like her. I want you to.. to know. I’m not in fear. I’m not.. gods be damned..” There’s frustration, now, as the words don’t seem to come out right. “I’m not s-scared.”

“I think she likes you, too,” muses Ron.

“Are you okay with..?” The gesture is sweeping, then small. “All of.. yeah?”

“I should be the one to ask you.” Ron shifts on his feet. Back and forth. Left to right. Shifts his weight and attempts to balance the impossible. “This.. those marks.. They’re binding. They tie you to her. To _me_.”

_You can’t possibly be okay with it,_ is what he wants to say. He feels as though there isn’t enough breath in his lungs for this. _You, with your whole life before you, with no god claiming you whole, you must not be tied to us this way._

“Don’t you want me to be?”

Ron blinks. “I.. I don’t want you..” He shakes his head. Attempts to breathe even when he is drowning in deep, dark waters he can no longer see the end of. “I don’t want you to feel like you have no choice.”

“Whatever choice I made, I made when I put my hand in yours and accepted that triad vow.” There’s something entirely matter-of-fact about it. As though the words are rehearsed, carefully, tried and tested long before they ever reached Ron’s ears. Perhaps that’s what they are. Chosen with care, just like he was by her once. “Even your god couldn’t force me to do that, Ron. I wanted it. I wanted that connection.” There is something utterly serene in Chuck’s eyes. Something far steadier in his voice, even when his speech is halting. “I just.. didn’t know what it meant. Not fully, anyway. Didn’t know why I was.. drawn to it.”

“And you do now?”

“Hmm. Maybe. I think so.” A faint smile plays around Chuck’s lips. “I kind of want to try something. To see if I’m right.” His head tilts a little as he looks at Ron. There’s a question in the man’s light eyes Ron is quite certain he doesn’t possess the answer to. “I just need you to.. promise.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah. P-promise me.”

“Promise you what?” He is quite certain his face is the picture of confusion. Pushes for answers when Chuck doesn’t answer and stares at him as though the man can see right through Ron. “What do I need to promise?”

“Don’t shoot me, okay?”

Ron stares, baffled. Blinks. “Why the fuck would I shoot you?” he demands. Frowns at the man who now gives him a rather wary look. “Chuck, that makes absolutely no se–”

Warm, soft lips crash against his and pull the remainder of Ron’s words into a foreign mouth. All of his speech drowns within this new heat that unfurls in his belly as his body responds long before his mind catches up. He surges forward in chase of that electric current that threatens to overtake his spine at the mere feeling of familiar hands brushing up against his arms. All but falls into the kiss because of it, deep and urgent and _wanting_ more than he ever has in his life. He doesn’t give Chuck a chance to breathe away from this touch. He needs the man’s breath in his mouth, needs to claim it the way he wants to claim every other part of him, needs to feel that breath to know that this is real. Ron doesn’t give Chuck the opportunity to pull away, to fade from his lips, to disappear into awkward silence.

_Oh,_ he thinks, wildly, kissing Easy’s staff sergeant in a way that would definitely see him court martialed, _this makes sense_.

He smiles at the thought and teases out a catch-me-if-you-can pattern upon the man’s mouth with his tongue. Chuck’s skin tastes like the rain, he finds, as he nips and licks his way to the point where Chuck’s breath audibly hitches. Laughs, delighted, as Chuck pushes against him until his back is against the wall and there’s no escaping that too-inquisitive, gods-be-good tongue that wreaks utter havoc on the shreds of willpower Ron is trying his hardest to cling to. His hands land on Chuck’s waist but wander toward the man’s back the moment the kiss is broken. Ron’s breath shudders out of him as smaller, lighter kisses trail his lips, his cheeks, his jaw. The answering smile against his jawline sends fresh shivers down his spine. He gasps aloud, his insides aflutter, at the teasing lick that lands just below his ear and the sensation of teeth dragging down his skin toward his collarbone moments after.

Ron goes boneless, weightless, at the touch. His hands fall away from Chuck’s body when the man’s lips meet the hollow just below his throat. He presses a kiss of his own into the man’s hair with a sigh that could signify happiness and pleasure all at once.

“Feel free to try this again any time,” he rasps out. “Promise I won’t shoot you for it.”

“Good to know.” Chuck’s grin is entirely too cat-ate-the-canary as he meets Ron’s eyes. There’s a spark in them that Ron hasn’t seen since that time they got drunk on a balcony in Berchtesgaden. “So, this was.. okay?”

“Okay?” Ron echoes the word incredulously. He laughs, sharp, cutting, joyful, as Chuck’s gaze studiously fixes on the wall behind Ron. “It was more than okay, Chuck.”

“Yeah, I thought so. Wouldn’t mind doing that again, _captain_.”

“Oh you little –” Ron breathes as the corners of Chuck’s mouth lift into a smug smile and the man’s gaze now wanders a little too freely over Ron’s bare skin. “Come here, you –”

This time, he is the one to instigate a kiss. It’s softer than he intends it to be, gentler still as his fingertips brush over the raised scars on Chuck’s head, sweet even when he takes his time to end the kiss and simply breathe the other man in without adding any pressure at all. He rests his fingers in Chuck’s wet hair and on the side of his neck. Chuck’s pulse softly flutters against his skin. He kisses the man again, agonizingly slow, and prays he will remember this taste of rain on his lips for the rest of his life.

“Ron,” Chuck says, and he knows that tone well enough to recognize it as part-warning, “I’m not made of glass.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Indulge me,” he requests in a similar tone that says he’s not really asking. Presses another kiss, short and sweet, to the man’s lips before they can curve down in a pout. “Just because you’re impatient..”

Ron laughs into Chuck’s hungry, demanding mouth as the man lets out a noise of dissent and crowds Ron against the wall all over again. There’s something of indulgence in this, too, in this way Chuck’s mouth makes him gasp out loud, in this way the touch of Chuck’s hands makes goosebumps rise to his skin, in this way Chuck’s body presses against his own and creates a warmth that drowns all reason out of Ron’s mind.

“Still good?” asks Chuck, still sounding entirely too smug in that particular tone that makes Ron’s toes curl. “This what you want, sir?”

“Chuck, gods damn it all to hell,” pants Ron, “stop calling me sir.”

“What happens if I don’t?”

“Try me.”

“Well, sir,” says Chuck, stepping backward, “I didn’t mean to be this forward about it, sir.” He gestures vaguely at Ron and himself. “It’s just that I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time, _sir_ ,” he laughs, sounding vaguely self-deprecating, “and you stripping down like that, sir, didn’t exactly help matters any.”

Ron steps forward. Chuck steps backward.

“I didn’t think you’d go for it, sir.” There’s something entirely earnest in Chuck’s tone now, even as he still teases out the formality with a light in his eyes that tells Ron he is challenging him on purpose. Chuck’s next words twist a sharp knife into his belly. “You were married to a woman, right? And your god, well, I’ve seen you with her enough to know how you feel about her. You were a right mess about her in Landsberg, sir.”

“I was married to a woman I never loved.” Ron steps forward again. This time, Chuck doesn’t step back. There is barely any space between their bodies. “As for my god.. I love and hate her in equal measure. I’m trying to figure out who I am without her.” He rakes a hand through his hair. Grimaces as droplets of water land on his face. “This, with you? I know I want it. I want you. More than I’ve ever wanted her, more than anything in this world.” His breath shudders out of him. He can’t meet Chuck’s eyes. “And I’m absolutely terrified of it.”

“If it helps at all,” breathes Chuck, interlacing his fingers with Ron’s and simply holding on to Ron’s hands, “I’m kind of scared of this too. There’s not much I remember about being shot. I don’t recall the pain.” He shakes his head. “It’s all a blur to me. B-but I know the feeling of your hand in mine. I remember this.” His left hand tightens around Ron’s in a reassuring kind of squeeze. “And I heard your god, clear as day, cutting through the haze. S-she sounded scared, like you now, even as she told me to fight.” A laugh, then, filled with a strange sense of wonder. “She called me _honey_ , did you know?”

Ron chokes out a rather strangled laugh. His eyes blur with tears only a moment in recognition of what she gifted him. _Thank you,_ he sends out into the world. Knows she’ll hear it no matter how far away she is. Decides to add a warning he knows will make her laugh. _Chuck is still mine and not yours, though._

His veins are quiet. There’s no rush within them now. No surge that tells him there’s a new battle to go to, a new fight to win, a new place to conquer. There’s no urgency in any of his actions anymore. There is a quiet inside of him that has never been there before. He blinks at the realization that he called Chuck his, as though all of his own disparate pieces somehow fit with the puzzle that is Chuck Grant.

It’s this realization that makes him be brave.

“I’m in love with you.”

“No shit,” retorts Chuck flippantly. His gaze turns steady in the next beat. “You wanna know something?”

Ron nods. Doesn’t trust his voice, not now.

Chuck’s hands come to rest on either side of his face briefly before his fingers begin a slow travel across Ron’s face and into his hair. Chuck’s eyes soften as Ron flinches at the sweetness of the touch, at the implications of the gesture, at the feeling of two hands holding on to everything he is and not letting go.

“I’m in love with you, too,” says Chuck, then, and Ron closes his eyes at how _sure_ he sounds. The next words are a whisper against his mouth. “I love you.”

The kiss is soft. Sweet in a way that makes Ron’s hands tremble. He presses those trembling hands against Chuck in a bid to steady himself, to anchor himself, to remember that this is reality. The thunder and lightning that crackle and rage overhead have nothing on the fierce beat of his heart as he draws Chuck into his arms and kisses him back like his life depends on being as close to this man as he can possibly be.

_I love you,_ he thinks, and for once the words aren’t tainted with blood. _I love you._

“I love you,” he says out loud, and marvels at the sound.

Ron’s hand comes to rest on the markings anew. He kisses the tip of the most violent one, near the pulse that beats a soft rhythm beneath his mouth, and hums as Chuck’s arms slowly wrap around him. He presses favor against his skin, kisses love and belonging into his veins, weaves his own affection around what remains of her saving grace. This is where he finds himself: loving and loved, belonging and belonged to, needing and needed.

They stumble around the room in a daze. He almost trips over his own boots. Chuck doesn’t fare any better with his uniform jacket. Their laughter is captured by lips that dive in for kisses, always, and Ron thinks he’s heard nothing sweeter than Chuck’s indignant squawk at how cold Ron’s fingertips burn on that strip of skin just above his hip. He frowns as the man steps back to contemplate him.

He allows himself to be pushed down onto the bed. Allows himself one moment of remaining seated on it, as though he too contemplates what comes next, before he smiles and lays down upon it. Stretches out a hand in clear invitation.

Chuck’s fingers interlace with his. He attempts to be gentle about it, now, but when he pulls and coaxes at the man to _come here please_ he is left with a grinning, smug, and rather victorious staff sergeant straddling his hips and peering down at him with all the leer of a tough challenge. His body strains against the remnants of his uniform even as he rolls his hips up – two can play _that_ game, after all, and he finds reward when Chuck’s eyes flutter shut a moment at the insistent touch. It isn’t long before Chuck’s mouth lands on his again and he almost comes undone at the fierce liquid longing that trembles through his body at the touch.

He is captured, wholly, by the taste of rain and the thunder that travels through his own body as Chuck’s wet hair comes to rest against his forehead and the man’s touches turn experimental enough to burn like fire. The lightning that crashes over their heads has nothing on the flash of pure _want_ that courses through him as teeth bite his lip, travel down his neck, and finally find purchase at the nape of his neck. Ron’s a mess, he knows this full well, with his fingers digging into divine markings and soft skin alike, with their legs entangled and his body surging upward to meet his lover, with every gasp and moan that leaves his lips.

It isn’t long before Chuck’s left arm begins to tremble from supporting his own body. Isn’t long before the man hisses softly and slowly drops more of his weight onto Ron. Ron’s fingers card through Chuck’s hair as the man buries his face in his neck and lets out a groan of dismay. The frustration is palpable as Chuck’s body collapses atop his own, with tremors still shooting through his arm and his breath ragged in his chest.

“It’s all right.” Ron carefully keeps his voice as low and as reassuring as possible. “I’ve got you.” He shifts his own body until he can move in such a way that his reassurance about wanting Chuck becomes a very tangible thing once more. “And I’m feeling pretty damn pleased about that, you know?”

“Oh, yeah, I can feel that,” hums Chuck, “you’re fucking pleased as punch.” A groan, then, low and urgent against his throat as Ron’s hand lazily traces circles upon the man’s skin. “Ron, for fuck’s sake, this is torture.”

He laughs and presses a soft kiss to the man’s temple. “Want me to move?”

“I’m _so_ going to regret giving you any kind of control over this, but yes.”

Ron doesn’t need to be told twice. They’re a tangle of limbs and surreptitious touches as he pushes Chuck off and promptly rolls half atop the man. His right hand wraps around Chuck’s left in an attempt to anchor himself, even as he loses himself in every meeting of their lips and every touch of skin on skin. They come to rest brow against brow, breathing uneven and ragged, nose against nose before their lips meet again, body against body in a space that feels entirely new.

“I was thinking,” says Chuck, between kisses, “that maybe those dry pants weren’t necessary.” His laugh, delighted and airy, spirals out into the room. “We could’ve just stayed naked.”

Ron smirks at the suggestion. “What happened to patience?”

“Almost dying sucks that right outta ya, I’ll have you know.”

Chuck blinks up at him. Ron has no doubt that the man intends to be the picture of innocence, but it’s entirely ruined by the wicked grin that curves at the man’s mouth and brightens his eyes. He groans as the man’s legs shift against him and the tilt of Chuck’s hips teases out a streak of longing that shudders through his whole body.

“Stop that,” he grunts out. Almost snaps out a curse when Chuck does the opposite of stopping. His words strangle in his throat until all he can do is choke out a single word. “ _Please_.”

“Yes, _sir_.” Chuck’s grin is positively delighted. There’s a light in his eyes that Ron prays will never fade. “But only because you said _please_ , sir.”

“Chuck, stop calling me sir.”

“Fucking make me, _sir_.”

Ron contemplates the man beneath him for a moment. Catalogs his gleaming eyes, his open smile, the curves and lines of his shoulders, and his hand that is pressed against Ron’s heart all too knowingly. Wonders if this is what peace is like, if it’s really as simple as the man he loves looking up at him as though Ron is the only thing that exists in this world.

“Yeah,” he breathes, then, and his own smile turns wicked as he allows his gaze to wander over Chuck’s body fully, “I’ll make you.”

“You’re all talk, _sir_ , and no –”

Ron silences Chuck with a kiss.


	12. XII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We come to the epilogue, and to some sort of end. We will go exploring in the series that follows.. and perhaps, well, we will see War and Ron again? Thank you for going on this journey with me!

* * *

He will never tire of seeing first light of day.

Ron smiles as the darkest blue in the sky is finally visited by streaks of bright, bright morning. Purple chases after indigo overhead before they will eventually both give way to pink and lilac shades that already peek out at him from behind the treeline. There is gold in the periphery of his vision that dances past to land on his lap before spilling onto the porch’s floor. It’s the same gold that kisses the top of the highest trees, painting all the leaves with a halo that makes them look almost white. The green beneath it all is still battling with the grass over which shade to make theirs today.

He sips his tea and watches the light crystallize on the lake.

“Up all night?”

“No,” he replies to the sleepy inflection of the voice behind him. “Woke a little while ago. Thought I’d come out here. See the day begin.”

“Hm. Good day?”

“Too early to tell. I would like to think so, though.” He cradles the cup in his hands. Nudges at the chair next to him with one foot. “Join me?”

“Twist my arm.”

He laughs softly as Chuck Grant lowers himself into the chair beside him and huffs out an indignant-sounding breath. Glances at the man and isn’t surprised to find his hair still askew, his eyes squinting at the light, and his nose wrinkled with obvious distaste at the early morning hour. The fact that he is out of bed at this hour at all can almost be called a miracle.

“You stole.. uh.. what keeps my feet warm. The slip.. slippers.”

“Yeah, I did. Didn’t think you’d be up early enough to miss them.”

“Ron.”

“Chuck.”

“Been a year.” The murmur’s so soft that he barely catches it. Chuck’s eyes are bright with first light, too, but are fixed on nothing in particular. He swallows down all the things that threaten to blur his own vision. “Year since I got shot.”

“I know,” he offers.

“That why you’re.. here?”

“Out here?” he clarifies, to Chuck’s brief nod of assent. The man’s grasp of language has been strained here and there since his injury. Exhaustion, like now, brings it to the foreground. He tries to help where he can, though he knows too much of it will just add to frustration rather than take it away. “Probably. I sat and watched the sun rise just like this when I visited you in the hospital sometimes. All that light slowly crept over the mountaintop and stopped when it struck your face.”

“I remember waking. Being in. Then back out. Then I woke another time to you. In the chair, by the window. You were reading. There was a bright light, one of those.. saintly things?” – Chuck snaps his fingers as he attempts to recall the proper word before giving up – “around your head and I wanted to laugh about it.”

“A halo, hm? I always thought I was rather ill-suited to one.”

“You never were.”

He snorts out a half-derisive laugh. Sets the empty cup down on the table beside him. There are days like these sometimes, when it feels like he is standing in quicksand and every movement pulls him tighter into the moving earth below. These days generally coincide with Chuck as he is now, half-drowsy with sleep and wholly affectionate in a way that makes Ron want to weep. He scrapes his throat. Attempts to keep his eyes on the horizon.

“I see her in you most clearly in the morning,” Chuck says then, fearless in a way that makes Ron’s belly swoop down in fierce terror, and Ron fails his mission to not look at him as he speaks. “I saw her in that hospital, too. On the edge of the bed. S-she was kind in the way you are. Fierce like you, too.” Soft laughter spills out into the morning air. Chuck’s eyes are bright with the dawn. He is beautiful like this. “I think she saw right through me the same way you do now.”

“I can’t find her anymore.” The quiet inside of him is overwhelming in moments like this. Ron hunches in on himself as he speaks. Tries to find words for the hurt. “It used to be so easy. All I knew and loved was her.” He shakes his head. “It’s different now. I think that’s good, but..”

“You miss her.” Chuck’s hand finds his and squeezes it gently. “You know she’ll be here again, eventually. There’s always another fight to get to. It’ll probably be like she never left at all.” He knows the words are true, but his chest feels tight and his lungs don’t have enough air. He leans into Chuck’s touch as the man finds all the words he cannot say. “Right now.. you miss her, sometimes, and it hurts when you do.”

“It shouldn’t.”

“Yeah, it should. L-love’s like that. I’m just lucky that I never have to miss you.”

Ron presses a kiss to Chuck’s knuckles. “Am I a bad person if I say that I hope she waits a while longer?” he asks, feeling altogether small. “I like who I am when I’m with you.”

“I liked you even back when you were still only hers and not mine. Used to drive Tab up the wall with it.” Chuck’s laugh reverberates through the morning haze. “I like you even more now. Head over heels for you.”

“And I for you.” He feels adrift in the space between them, as though he is seconds away from falling into the open sky. There won’t be a parachute for him this time. No silk canopy to save his life. Just him and the air before he is plunged into the depths of whatever water lies beneath Chuck’s gaze. He thinks he will welcome it. Releases a breath that he has been clinging to since the first time this man kissed him. “I think we make sense.”

“You. Me.” Chuck shrugs. “We do. Together.”

“I know you. You know me.” He affirms it in a way he always has, but his fingers hesitate before they find Chuck’s shoulder. His heart is the treacherous thing in his mouth that makes his words quiver before they find a home beneath the other man’s skin. He can’t look away even though he must. “Is that enough?”

“Too early.”

He blinks. “Too early in the morning for this sort of philosophy?” he checks. Snorts out a laugh as Chuck nods vigorously. “Do you want to go back to bed?”

“P-please.”

Chuck’s left hand trembles as he reaches for Ron. He wraps his own hand around it gently the way he did more than a year ago to make a threefold promise he is still fulfilling every day of his life. Chuck rises to his feet in a shuffling, stumbling motion that speaks of drowsiness. Ron wraps his arm around his waist as he all but falls against Ron’s chest. Ron smiles, lips coming to rest on the other man’s brow.

“Come, love,” he murmurs. There is a well-practiced dance in what they are doing in this early light of morning. He treasures every time it happens. Yields to the sway in Chuck’s footsteps with the practiced air of one who has learned surrender to a better man. “To bed.”

Chuck’s smile against the nape of his neck is slow and victorious as he tugs Ron homeward. The touch of his lips, after, is salvation.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the prompting of some heaven-taught seer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26066866) by [MercuryGray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/pseuds/MercuryGray)
  * [Precious Broken Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26554858) by [ktredshoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktredshoes/pseuds/ktredshoes)




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